Abstract

The study investigated the technical, Allocative and economics efficiencies of yam producers in Ganye Local government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria. Combinations of purposive and random sampling techniques were employed using 100 famers from five different wards of the local government. In the first place, five wards were selected and used for this study and twenty farmers were selected from each ward, making a total of 100 famers, twenty. The analytical tool used to achieve the objectives of this study was Data Envelopment Analysis. The results of the study revealed that 57% of the farmers had technical efficiency of 0.81 and above while 43% of the farmers operate at less than 0.81 efficiency level. The mean technical efficiency for the 100 sampled farmers in the study area was 0.78. The farmer with the best practice has a technical efficiency of 1.00 while 0.37 is for the least efficient farmers. This implies that on the average, output fall by 0% from the maximum possible level of 1.00 due to technical inefficiency. The mean allocative efficiency was 0.98. The result indicates that average yam farmer in the state would enjoy cost saving of about 5% while allocative inefficient farmer will have an efficiency gain of 95% to attain the level of most efficient farmer among the respondents. The mean economic efficiency was 0.77. The farmer with the best practice has an economic efficiency of 1.0 while 0.08 was for the least efficient farmers. This implies that on the average, output fall by 52% from the maximum possible level due to inefficiency. Finally, among the constraints identified in the study area, the majority of the respondent attested to the fact that high cost of inputs, transportation problem, lack of credit facilities and storage/preservation problem were the major constraints they faced in yam production in the area. The study concludes that yam farmers in the study area have achieved absolute efficiency in the use of variable inputs. It was found that yam production in the study area is profitable.

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