A comparative analysis of technical efficiency of non irrigated upland and irrigated lowland rice smallholder farmers in Uganda

Rice production in Uganda is more of bringing in household incomes than food consumption as evidenced by 84% of harvested product sold as compared to13.7% consumed at household level for the study area. The study used cross-section data from a sample of 160 rice small holder farmers in Uganda. A stochastic production frontier function was used to estimate the farmer specific technical efficiencies (TE). The function showed that the mean TE was 63.7% for non irrigated upland and 65.3% for irrigated lowland rice farmers but showed no statistical significance difference. The estimated efficiencies were then explained by socioeconomic and demographic factors.
It was found out that education, credit accessibility and extension services contributed positively towards improvement of efficiency with land fragmentation affecting negatively. The results imply that when more resources are invested in improving extension services, availing credit and reducing land fragmentation, the farmers’ technical efficiencies would be improved leading to improved household incomes.