Impact of Government Facilities on Technical Efficiency of Rice Farmers in the Senegal River Valley

This paper aims at assessing the impact of the government hydro-agricultural facilities on the rice farmers' technical efficiency in the Senegal River valley. Results estimations showed that farming in thesefacilities increaseson average the technical efficiency by 5.17 %. The technical efficiency determinants analysis from an exponential function estimation, using a nonlinear least squares method, reveals that, besides the treatment, the combined effects between this one and the distance from the house to the plot, the educations' level, the household sizeand the householder gender are statistically significant on efficiency. The major policy implications are:(i) the Government should keep on providing these kinds of agricultural infrastructure to farmers; (ii) the establishment of a sustainable Fund for Supporting Agricultural Research and Scaling out Agricultural Research Achievements would strengthen capacities of Research and Extension Services to address many issues in the rural areas.