Stochastic Meta Frontier Analysis of Smallholder Rice Farmers’ Technical Efficiency

The aim of this study is to compare the technical efficiency of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Conventional Rice Production System (CRPS) farmers in Mali. Using cross-sectional data for 208 randomly selected rice farmers, the Stochastic Meta Frontier model is applied. The results indicate that the mean technical efficiency is 0.96 and 0.79 for SRI and CRPS respectively. This implies that SRI farmers were more technically efficiency than their counterpart. Similarly, the mean technology gap ratio was 0.98 and 0.91 for SRI and CRPS farmers, respectively. We also find that rice paddy production (SRI) was positively influenced by labor and negatively by organic manure while rice paddy production (CRPS) was positively linked with inorganic fertilizer and land. Further investigation reveals that family labor and flooding level increased the technical inefficiency for SRI adopters whereas education had a negative impact. For the CRSP farmers, the current factors were unable to account for technical inefficiency except age of farm household head. Our study finds strong cause to encourage SRI adoption as it could be the highly searched for solution for farmers to increase their yields and eventually enhance their food security status.