TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF MAIZE PRODUCTION IN IREWOLE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OSUN STATE, NIGERIA

This study analysed the technical efficiency of maize production in Irewole Local Government Area in Osun State, Nigeria. Data were collected using a multi-stage sampling technique with the use of well-structured questionnaires from 105 farming households and analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier production function and gross margin analysis. Results showed that 53% of the sample respondents were female with an average age of 45 years which means that most of the farmers were adults who are married and have the ability to take quality decision for the growth of their farming activities with the help of social capital. 87.62% were married. 55.24% had access to land for cultivation up to or equal to 3 hectares. The average household size was 6 people and 65.71% of the respondents had secondary education which indicates that they are literates. The result of the gross margin analysis revealed that the total revenue, gross margin and profit were found to be N998,952.4, N757,771.9 and N755,822.4 respectively. This indicates that maize production is profitable in the study area. The technical efficiency is less than 1.0 indicating that all the fanners were producing below the maximum efficiency frontier. The mean technical efficiency is 0.83 (or 83%). This implies that, on the average, the farmers were 83% technically efficient; hence their observed output was about 17% less than the maximum frontier output. The result of the inefficiency showed that the variables age, sex, marital status, house hold size, hired labour and number of years spent in school affect the Inefficiency of farmers in the study area and they are all significant at 1%. The study concludes that socio-economic and technical efficiency variables (age, household size, level of education, size of land, labour, access to capital) significantly influenced maize farmers productivity. Therefore, it is recommended that government should create initiatives that would foster end-to-end productivity of maize from the farm to the market and government should empower maize fanners by giving them inputs like fertilizers, high yield, disease-resistant maize seed varieties and pesticides. This would reduce the costs associated with production and boost profit which will encourage more farmers to go into maize production.