Technical Efficiency in Wheat Seed Production : A Case Study from Tarai Region of Nepal <Articles>

In this paper, we measured the technical efficiency of wheat seed growers and identified the socio-economic variables influencing the efficiency. The data for the study were collected from three Tarai districts: Siraha, Chitwan and Kailali, representing eastern, central and far-western development regions of Nepal. Field survey was carried out in 180 households, representing 60 from each of the above districts. Stochastic frontier production model was estimated to measure the technical efficiency of farmers using crop yield as dependent variable against five inputs: source seed, labor, chemical fertilizer, livestock and operational land. The result shows the average efficiency of farmers in mobilizing above five inputs is 78.3% ranging from 38.6% to 94.6%. It means farmers could still increase their efficiency by 21.7% in wheat seed production. Nine socio-economic variables were regressed against technical efficiency score (as dependent variables) to identify their influence on technical efficiency, and the result shows that access to public irrigation source, and land quality have significant positive influence on technical efficiency. This shows that promotion of public irrigation scheme and land quality management measures should be prioritized in the agricultural extension policy to enhance efficiency of farmers in wheat seed production.