Factors Influencing Technical Efficiency among Small Scale Sesame Farmers in Central Taraba State, Nigeria

The aim of this study was to identify factors influencing Technical Efficiency among small scale Sesame Production in Central Taraba State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the Socio-economic characteristic of the Farmers, establish the technical efficiency of Sesame farmers in the study area and identify factors of technical efficiency of famers in the study area. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used in selecting 82 sesame farmers who were interviewed as respondents using structured questionnaires. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic production efficiency frontier. The results revealed that males constitute the highest (64.6%) proportion of the respondents. About (48%) of the farmers were within the age bracket of 31- 40 years, among sampled households. The mean age of the respondents was 42 years, while 63.4% were married. The result further indicates that about 90.2 % of the respondents were literate at least having one form of formal education or the other with 70.7% have household sizes that are more than six with a mean of about 9 persons. Over 81% had 6-20 years of Sesame farming experience, with 10 years as the average. Access to extension services remains a challenge, as over 80% lack access to the study area. Most of the respondents (76.8%) lack access to credit. The result of the stochastic production efficiency frontier indicates that variables Seed, farm size, labour and herbicide were positive and significant at 1% 5% and 10% level of probability and hence play a major role in Sesame production in the study area. The coefficient of age, farming experience, household size, access to credit and membership of cooperatives were significant and therefore, increases technical efficiency which agrees with a prior expectation. It was concluded that the majority of Sesame farmers were relatively technically efficient in their use of resources, with a mean technical efficiency of 0.81. It was recommended Sesame farmers do not realize their full production potential, there is a need for sustained improvements on performance through enhanced roles of extension agents by the government in educating farmers on new technologies, which will significantly raise the technical efficiency