Technical Efficiency of Maize Production in Oyo State

Low productivity in Agriculture has been observed to be a problem militating against increased and sustainable farm income. The objective of the study is to determine the technical efficiency of maize farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria and further examined the factors that determine the differential in efficiency index. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 120 maize farmers in the study area. Data were collected and subjected to inferential statistics; stochastic frontier production model was used in the analysis to determine the relationship between the maize output and the level of input used in the study area. The result of the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) showed that 63.8% of the variation in output of maize among the farms was due to technical inefficiency. The technical inefficiency index computed shows a mean efficiency ratio of 0.765 implying that substantial inefficiency exists among the maize farmers in the study area. It was concluded that the farmers in the study area were technically inefficient.