Technical inefficiency and sustainability of rice production in the Fadama of niger state, southern guinea savanna of nigeria

The study examined technical inefficiency and sustainability of rice production in the Fadama of southern guinea Savanna of Nigeria. A two- stage simple random sampling technique was used to obtain 160 rice farming households interviewed for the study. A single- stage Cobb-Douglas based Stochastic Frontier Model using Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) was used for analysing the data. The MLE of the Stochastic Frontier Model revealed the presence of short run increasing return to scale with a mean technical efficiency of 65%. This result indicated the possibility of improving efficiency of sampled Fadama rice farming households by 35% with the existing resources and technology. Farm size, family labour, hired labour, capital, cost of purchased inputs, length of fallow, quantity of fertilizer used, crop diversification index, drainage and nutrient intake index were factors that significantly (P < 0.05) influenced the estimated technical efficiency. The results of the inefficiency model show that farm size, farm experience, access to credit, educational level and extension contact were negative and significant (P < 0.05). This implied that increase in these variables would lead to less inefficiency. Household size had positive and significant relationship on inefficiency which implies that increase would lead to higher inefficiency. The mean Short Run Sustainability Index (SRSI) of - 0.15.56 showed an average productivity decline of 15.56%, which could be reversed by preventive and remedial action. Rice production is thus considered sustainable. Consolidation of household resources to increase holdings, increased use of animal traction and organic fertilizer as well research into labour saving devices that reduces production cost and integrated pest management is recommended.