Farmers Resource - Use and Technical Efficiency in Cowpea Production in Nigeria

:In Nigeria, the use of stochastic frontier to estimate farm level efficiency effects is still at the rudimentary level and is beginning to build up. Few studies have been undertaken but there is dearth need for more empirical studies on this important issue. This paper presents the analysis of technical efficiency of cowpea production in Osun state southwest Nigeria, using the stochastic production frontier, budgetary and resource-use efficiency analyses. The marginal value products of all the resources used are less than their prices (MVP < MFC), indicating underutilization of resources. The enterprise economic efficiency is 1.17. This means that for every N1 spent by the farmer on cowpea production, 17 kobo was realized as profit. The farmers' average technical efficiency is 87%, which suggest an appreciable use of inputs in productivity. Analysis efficiency using stochastic production frontier shows that farm size, seed, hired labour, family labour, fertilizer and pesticides are significant at 1% and some socio-economic variables using tobit regression model is found to be significantly different from zero at 1% for cooperative membership and farming experience. It is recommended that farmers should be encouraged to join cooperative society and extension services agents should intensify their efforts in training and mobilizing farmers for improved production of cowpea. Also, farmers should cut down the use of resources (quantity) for optimum production and economic benefit.