Measurement of farm level efficiency of home gardens in Uyo, Nigeria: A stochastic production frontier approach

Abstract

To investigate the farm level efficiency of home vegetable gardens in Uyo, a stochastic production function which incorporates a model for the technical inefficiency effects was used. Using farm-level data from 80 home gardeners obtained through structured questionnaire, the parameters were estimated simultaneously with those of the model of inefficiency effect. Variables included in the model for the efficiency effects were land, family labour, fertilizer, hired labour, manure and capital. Asymptotic parameter estimates were evaluated to describe efficiency determinants using the maximum likelihood estimation technique. Results reveal that the most important resource inputs were family labour, land, manure and hired labour and were significant at (P < 0.01, P < 0.05, P < 0.10). Results further reveal a mean technical efficiency of 0.80 suggesting that output from home gardening could be raised by 20 percent using resources and technology available.