Les Déterminants De L’efficience Technique Des Riziculteurs De L’office Du Niger Au Mali The Office Niger Rice Farmers’ Technical Efficiency Determinants in Mali

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of technical efficiency score and to analyze its determinants in the Office Niger area in Mali. The data used are a cross section of producers collected in April 2014. The final sample is made of 130 observations. A Cobb-Douglas model is used to fit the data using frontier 4.1 and Stata 14 software. Our investigations found out that the rice cultivation at the Office Niger evolves in a non-variable returns to scale framework. The average technical efficiency score is 0.66, implying that the level of technical efficiency can be improved by 0.34 at no additional cost. In addition, experience, equipment, being member of a farmer's organization and land rental are identified as statistically significant determinants of technical efficiency of rice farmers in the Office du Niger area. Policies to improve the level of technical efficiency and boost rice production in Mali should be based on these variables.

Stochastic Meta Frontier Analysis of Smallholder Rice Farmers’ Technical Efficiency

“…The increase in production is usually achieved in Sub-Saharan Africa through the increase in land cultivated. This result confirms the finding of Coulibaly et al (2017) and Audibert (1997) who found that rice production highly depended on changes in the land at "office du Niger" in Mali. This result also supports the findings of Koirala et al (2014).…”

“…Cereals are the staple food in Mali. Particularly, rice remains the most consumed representing about 30% of total cereal consumption (Coulibaly, Savadogo, & Diakité, 2017). The local consumption per capita has increased from 69.7 kg/person/year in 2010 to 105 kg/person/year in 2013 (Van Oort et al, 2015).…”

“…The local consumption per capita has increased from 69.7 kg/person/year in 2010 to 105 kg/person/year in 2013 (Van Oort et al, 2015). Rice production is also continuously increasing at a rate of 4% and contributes about 5% to Gross Domestic Product GDP which is 8.3% of the agricultural flow (Coulibaly et al, 2017) . Consequently, the Malian government considers rice as one of the strategic crops in the achievement of food security.…”

“…However, there is currently a huge deficit between local production and consumption leading to increased rice importation (Gajigo, Denning, & Dawe, 2010). The rapid population growth, dietary diversification, rising income and urbanization are some of the reasons for the increasing rice consumption (Coulibaly et al, 2017).…”

“…A. Onumah, E. E. Onumah, Al-Hassan, & Bruemmer, 2013;Toma, Dobre, Dona, & Cofas, 2015). Likewise, in Mali recent studies include, Audibert (1997) measured technical inefficiency effects of paddy farmers in "office du Nige ON" in Mali, and Coulibaly et al (2017) applied stochastic production frontier in measuring rice technical efficiency in ON (Audibert, 1997;Coulibaly et al, 2017;Diamoutene, Diakite, & Coulibalily, 2018). However, no study has attempted to compare the relative technical efficiency levels between the SRI and CRPS farms in Mali.…”