This study was designed to measure the technical efficiency and its determinants in cotton production in North West, Nigeria. The study used primary data generated during the 2013/2014 cotton production season. Data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire administered to 355 cotton farmers. The data were analyzed using stochastic frontier production model. Multi stage purposive sampling technique was used to select the States, the Agricultural Development Project zones, the Local Governments and the villages, while random sampling was used to select the respondents from which input-output data were collected. The result of the overall elasticities of production which give the level of return to scale derived from the Cobb-Douglas equation was 0.68. The result of the study further shows that 30% of the farmers had technical efficiency of 0.81 and above while 70% of the farmers operate at less than 0.8 efficiency level. The farmers with the best and least practice had a technical efficiency of 0.99 and 0.10, while the average technical efficiency index was 0.65 respectively. This implies that on the average, output fall by 35% from the maximum possible level due to inefficiency. The result of the determinants of technical inefficiency shows that the coefficients for age and farming experience were significant at 1%.level of probability, while educational level, household size and marital status were negative and not significant.

This study was necessitated as a result of the existing yield gap between rice production and consumption in Nigeria. This research aimed to determine the instantaneous and compound growth rates of rice consumption and production in Nigeria over the period of 1994 to 2019 and its empowerment impact. Time series data on the aggregate rice consumption and production obtained from the database of United State Department for Agriculture (USDA) foreign agricultural service were employed in this study. A semi-log growth rate model was employed to analyze the time series data using E-views 8.5 and the result of the analysis showed that the instantaneous and compound growth rates(5% and 5.13%) of rice consumption were higher than that of rice production (4.5% and 4.6%) and this indicates that the incidence of consumption-production gap for rice in Nigeria has been an existing trend over the years and the trend would continue if appropriate measures are not put in place. The implication of this finding is that the untapped potentials of Nigeria for rice production should be exploited for the empowerment of Nigerian youths in the area of rice production and women in the area of rice processing. This research work hereby recommends that government should provide comprehensive farmer education and technical assistant, continued engagement between the federal government and the states governments and the provision of value-chain training to rice farmers in Nigeria.