Research Unit for Livelihood and Natural Resources, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Nizamiah Observatory Campus, Begumpet, Hyderabad – 500 016, Andhra Pradesh
Online published on 9 October, 2012.
The level of technical inefficiency has been estimated in maize production due to the existence of interlocked input credit market in the tribal belt of Odisha. The primary data collected from 169 farmers of six villages in the Mohana block of Gajapati district of Odisha has been used to measure the technical efficiency using stochastic frontier production function. The study has shown that the production system is highly inefficient in these areas, but the farmers engaged in commercial farming are comparatively more efficient than their counterparts in the traditional farming. This inefficiency persists due to the absence of formal sources of credit and subsidized input market in the area. The overall situation is quite complicated and exploitative in the area which needs to be changed by removing the supply-side constraints.
Agricultural-inputs, maize, stochastic frontier, technical efficiency, credit market, tribal agriculture
