Trends in Agricultural Economics1994-79332077-2246Asian Network for Scientific Information10.3923/tae.2008.1.7AjaniO.I.Y. UgwuP.C. 1200811This study examined the impact of adverse health on
the productivity of farmers in Kainji Lake Basin North Central Nigeria.
It made use of Stochastic frontier production model. The technical efficiency
of farmers falls in the range of 0.28-0.99 with a mean of 0.85. This implies
that the efficiency of farmers can be improved at the available technology
by about 15.1% in the short run. With the exception of seed and insecticide,
other variables in the efficiency model have positive coefficients with
fertilizer having the highest coefficient. This probably suggests an overuse
of seed and insecticides relative to other inputs and that fertilizer
is an important variable input in the agricultural output of farmers in
the study area. It was observed that gamma (a measure of variance of output
from the frontier attributed to efficiency) is 0.114. This implies that
0.886 or 88.6% of total variation in output is due to technical inefficiency.
The adverse health variable in the inefficiency model has the largest
positive coefficient and is statistically significant at p<0.05. This
implies that health has a greater share in the inefficiency of the farmers
and calls for attention of policy makers in Nigeria.]]>Adewale, B., M.A. Mafe and M.A. Sulyman, 19971997Agulanna, F.T., 20062006Anonymous, 20062006Ashagidigbi, W.M., 20042004Battese, G.E. and G.S. Corra,197721167179Bradley, K.R., 20022002Clifford, M.M., M. McCarney and E. Boelee, 20062006Coelli, T.J., 19941994Coelli, T.J. and G.E. Battese,199640103128Corinna, H. and M.T. Ruel, 20062006Donald, C., 20062006Falusi, A.O., 19951995FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), 19871987Fulginito, L.E. and R.K. Perrin, 1998194551Kalirajan, K.,198129283294Ngambeki, D.S. and A.E. Ikpi,198230297318National Population Commission, 20062006Rahji, M.A.Y., 2005145657Schultz, P., 19991999Strauss, J. and D. Thomas, 199836766817Ugwu, P.C., 20062006