Estimation of Farm Level Technical Efficiency in Maize Production at the High Mountain North Region of Pakistan

Abstract

P akistan is an agricultural country, having a parched atmosphere in nearly two-thirds of its territories. Climatic fluctuation has an immediate and unfavorable effect on the sustenance and improvement, particularly in dry ranges. Among climatic elements, precipitation has a tremendous impact on the production of crops (Khuram and Ghulam, 2011). Agriculture in Pakistan relies on water obtained from precipitation and snowmelt. Pakistan confronts the issues of floods, drier seasons, and inadequate water for crop production. Irrigation water availability predominantly relies on climatic variable, for example, air temperature, sunlight-based radiation, relative moisture, wind speed and agronomic components like phases of the crop (Ghazala and Mahmood, 2009).In Pakistan, maize stands third most essential cereal crop after wheat and rice respectively. It is not just consumed as nourishment grain, but also utilized as a forage crop for livestock. Being a commercial/ industrial crop, it is also an ingridient for several items that are produced from grains. Maize grain holds about 1.7% ash, 3.0% sugar, 5.8% fiber, 4.8% oil, 10% protein and 72% starch (Chaudhary, 1993). The annual grain crop production in Pakistan amounts to Abstract | Gilgit-Baltistan's economy is mostly based on subsistence crops production. The ecosystem of mountain is fragile and tends to be relatively low productive due to number of factors. Therefore, the present study was aimed to know the opportunities of productivity due to improving the technical efficiency of maize crop, and to determine the factors which influence maize production in high mountains of Pakistan. For this purpose, initially two villages one from District Nagar and other from District Hunza were selected with an aggregate sample of 112 maize crop growers. Both primary and secondary data were collected from different sources. To measure technical efficiency, the stochastic frontier production function along with technical efficiency model was employed. Data was analyzed through statistical software Frontier 4.1, because of its appropriateness in efficiency related assessments. Result shows that the factors of low yields of different peasants were due to inefficiency. The overall average technical efficiency of maize farmers was estimated 73.6%. It was inferred that the productivity can be enhanced by reducing the inefficiency from the ecological factors, peasants' personal characteristics and farming conditions.

Household Food Security: Determinants and Perceived Challenges in Mountains of Azad Jammu and Kashmir

“…As mountain areas are not associated with industrial production technologies, these mountains are not gifted for the bulk production of the important staple crop foods. Also, Technical Efficiency (TE) is not there which effects the production of crops (Alam et al, 2020). These challenges are constant for mountain regions so is the case with mountainous areas of the AJK.…”