Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development Vol. 4(4), pp. 044-050, May 2015 ISSN 2327-3151 ©2015 Academe Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Effects of off-farm work on the technical efficiency of rice farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria

Onyenekwe, S.C* and Okorji, E.C

Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: chinasa.onyenekwe@unn.edu.ng.

Accepted 20 February, 2015

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of off-farm work on technical efficiency of rice farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria. Ninety respondents were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Data for the study were collected by the use of well structured questionnaire. Stochastic production frontier model was used to analyse the data. Results showed that technical efficiency scores for the farmers ranged from 0.579 to 1.000 and 0.606 to 1.000 for the rice farmers without and with off-farm work respectively. The average efficiencies are 0.964 and 0.871 for rice farmers without and with off-farm work, respectively. This suggests that off-farm work has a negative effect on farmers’ technical efficiency. The result of the student t-test conducted at 5% significance level showed that there is a significant difference in the mean technical efficiency of the two groups of rice farmers. Finally, the study recommended that government should come up with policies that will make agriculture more lucrative and attractive so as to encourage farmers to focus on agricultural production so that they do not seek off-farm employment that can negatively affect their technical efficiency.

Key words: Technical efficiency, off-farm work, rice farmers, stochastic production frontier model.