Wheat Productivity, Efficiency, and Sustainability: A Stochastic Production Frontier Analysis

Abstract

The agriculture sector plays a crucial role in the overall development of the country. The sector shares about 24 percent of the GDP and employs about 44 percent of the workforce in the country. Crops sub-sector is the major contributor towards agriculture, sharing more than 53 percent of the value-added. Wheat, being the staple food of Pakistanis, carries immense importance: it contributes about 12 percent of sector value-added, is sown on about 37 percent of the total cropped area, and shares 80 percent in consumption of food grains, while its share in food grain production is around 70 percent. As primary diet, wheat alone shares about 50 percent of the total calories’ and proteins intake in Pakistan, and contributes about 8 percent of the total fat consumed [FAO (Various Issues]. Consequently, overall dietary well being of our people especially the urban and rural poor is largely dependent on the performance of wheat economy.

Technical efficiency and yield gap of smallholder wheat producers in Ethiopia: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

“…The explanation for this result is that availability of credit enables farmers to purchase inputs and plant wheat within appropriate sowing dates that can positively contributes to wheat yield. This result is consistent with the finding of Ahmad et al (2002).…”

“…This is an expected result as far plots require additional time to travel before actually starting the operation. The finding of Ahmad et al (2002) is also consistent with this result.…”

“…Therefore, arranging education opportunities like adult education would improve technical efficiency of farmers. Previous findings (Ahmad et al, 2002;Hassan and Ahmad, 2005;Kaur et al, 2010;Sekhon et al, 2010;Wassie, 2014;Yami et al, 2013, Wudineh andEndrias, 2016) are in line with this finding.…”

Drivers of groundwater use and technical efficiency of groundwater, canal water, and conjunctive use in Pakistan’s Indus Basin Irrigation System

“…The total available groundwater resources of Punjab, Sindh, and kPk Provinces are estimated at 42.75 million, 18 million, and 3.11 million acre-feet, respectively (PPSGWP, 1998). 2 Similarly, groundwater quality is better in Punjab, compared to Sindh: a relatively smaller share of the canal command areas in Punjab (23%) have hazardous groundwater quality, while the share is 78% in Sindh (Qureshi et al, 2010). The presence of landowners on the watercourse who work for the irrigation department or who are politicians reduces the probability of using groundwater as a primary source of water by about 11%.…”

“…This average technical efficiency score is comparable with efficiency scores reported by other researchers for wheat production in Pakistan. Battese, Malik, and Gill (1996) reported efficiency scores in four districts of Punjab ranging from 57% to 79%, while Ahmad, Chaudhry, and Iqbal (2002) reported a technical efficiency score of 68% among sampled farmers in Punjab, Sindh, and kPk.…”