Abstract:
This study examined and compared the technical efficiency and profitability of maize enterprise under different production technologies in South-Western Nigeria. The
Central element of the study was to identify the most technically efficient and profitable
type of technology used by maize farmers in the study area. Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 311 maize farmers selected from 3 states in South Western Nigeria. Multi-stage random sampling technique, descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis and econometric techniques were used to analyse collected data. The stochastic frontier production function was used to estimate the technical efficiency and inefficiency of the farmers. The hypotheses were tested using generalized log-likelihood estimate.
Results of analyses showed that maize farmers were in their productive age with mean age of 48.6years. Farmers using Improved Technology were the youngest with mean age of 45.4years followed by Semi-improved Technology ST (48.9years) and
traditional technology, (51.5yrs). Only 26.56% of farmers using Improve Technology had no formal education while ST was 43.48% and Traditional Technology 58.1%. Maize production was most profitable under improved technologies with mean, gross margin (GM) per maize grower of N18, 860.08 and GM/ha of N12, 459.00. The productivity analysis showed that the quantity of seeds planted, labour, fertilizer usage, amount spent on herbicides, contact with extension and farm size influenced the level of maize output under the different technology types. The level of maize output was positively and significantly influenced by all the postulated variables except labour and amount spent on herbicides. Similarly, the results of the technical inefficiency showed that age, years of schooling, household size and farming experiences were the factors influencing the level of technical inefficiency in all the production technologies. The results of efficiency analysis indicated that the predicted technical efficiencies showed that the highest proportion of farmers had technical efficiencies between 0.80 and 0.90 in all the types of technology. The results evidently showed that traditional technology was the most technically efficient type of technology with mean technical efficiency of 0.73 followed by semi-improved technology (0.69) and improved technology 0.65. Results of the state comparison of technical efficiency showed that Oyo State farmers were more efficient in the use of traditional and improved technologies than Ondo State maize farmers with mean technical efficiency of 0.75 and, 0.67 respectively while Ondo State farmers had mean technical efficiency of 0.72 and 0.64 for the same technology types.
