Application of Data Envelopment Analysis in Measurement of Technical Efficiency of Cassava Farmers in Imo State, Nigeria

This study applied cost approach constant returns to scale and variable returns to scale data envelopment analysis models to measure technical efficiency of 276 cassava farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Technical efficiency among the cassava farmers varied substantially between 0.214 and 0.925 with a mean technical efficiency of 0.622. Scale efficiency of the cassava farmers vaired substantially between 0.103 and 0.916 with a mean of 0.495. The farmers are not all operating at the optimal scale. Most of the cassava farmers operated very far away from the efficiency frontier. The overall technical inefficiency among the cassava farmers resulted more by scale inefficiency compared to pure technical inefficiency.