Technical efficiency and its determinants: a case of rice production in Tinh Bien District, An Giang Province, Vietnam

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine technical efficiency and determinants of technical efficiency of rice farmers in Tinh Bien district, Vietnam, based on a cross-sectional data collected in 2016 from 192 rice farmers in Tinh Bien. The Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function, incorporating inefficiency effects was employed to analyze the data, using the Frontier 4.1. The results revealed that technical efficiency of the interviewed rice farmers was ranged 50.54-99.86%, average of 78.26%. Significant factors that were found to positively affect rice output per farm were area, labor, and phosphate fertilizer while seed and pesticide were negatively related to the rice output per farm. In addition, significant determinants were found positively affect to technical efficiency were education attainment, farm size, training, membership of farmers' association while farming experience was found negatively to affect technical efficiency.