Economic efficiency in table-egg enterprise in Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the economic efficiency of egg production in Abia State, Nigeria during the 2018 production season. Farm level data  were collected from 240 layer farmers in the State using a wellstructured questionnaire. Multi-stage random sampling technique was  used to elicit primary data from the respondents. The stochastic frontier profit function was used to examine the economic efficiency of  the layer farms. The result of the stochastic frontier profit function showed that the enterprise is not fully economically efficient. The  mean economic efficiency of layer is 0.75. This implies that farm profit could still be increased by reallocating the existing resources more  optimally. Access to credit was found to decrease economic efficiency of egg enterprise (0.4922). The result also shows that the coefficient  of membership of cooperative (-0.4320) increased economic efficiency while household size (0.0661) reduced economic  efficiency. Therefore the study recommends that credit should be made available at terms and times convenient to farmers to enhance  their level of economic efficiency. Farmers should also form cooperative societies to enable them have access to productive inputs to aid  large scale operation. There is need to create awareness for the women farmers to know the profit potentials of layer production so that  they could be encouraged to undertake the enterprise.