ABSTRACT

The study evaluated the technical efficiency of cassava production in Isoko North L.G.A, Delta state as its broad objective. Socio-economics characteristics of cassava farmers, the factors that affect cassava production and its technical efficiency were among the specific objectives addressed in this study. A simple random sampling technique was used to sample for respondents with the aid of well-structured questionnaire; a total of 120 respondents were sampled. Descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage were used to analyse their socio-economic characteristics. The Cobb Douglas stochastic production function was used to determine the factors that affect cassava production and its technical efficiency. The result showed that farm size, fertilizer use and depreciated capital input were important determinants of cassava production. The implication is that increases in any of these or all of the factors increase cassava production. An elasticity of production of 3.66 was obtained, which indicated increasing return to scale and hence a unit increase in the input leads to a greater increase in output. The result further indicated that, farm size, '.fertilizer use, education, farming experience, gender and household were factors that determined the technical efficiency of cassava production in the study area. Increases in these variables will lead to increases in the technical efficiency of cassava production. Educational level and farming experience were positive and statistically significant at 1% level of significance. Household size was significant at 5% level of significance while farm size, fertilizer used and gender were positive and statistically significant at 10% level of significance. The mean technical efficiency of cassava production was 89%. This implies that most of the farmers were technically efficient but still have 11% opportunity to improve on their level of technical efficiency.