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Impact of Land Fragmentation and Soil Fertility on Aus Rice Producers’ Technical Efficiency in BARIsal District of Bangladesh

A. K. M. Abdullah Al-Amin*
BangladeshDepartment of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

M. Saidur Rahman
BangladeshDepartment of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

M. I. Hossain
Department of Agribusiness and Marketing, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

This article determines the impact of land fragmentation and soil fertility on Aus rice producers’ technical efficiency (TE) of Barisal district in Bangladesh. A total of 60 farm households from two villages were selected using stratified random sampling procedure. Detailed input and output data for the Aus were collected in May 2015. Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model was used to address this TE. Results indicate that the mean TE was 0.61. Among the four land fragmentation indicators two were found to be statistically significant with anticipated signs. The positive effect of the number of plots on TE implies that variation effect exceeded the management effect and the average distance from plots to homestead indicating loss of time and inconvenience in farming management as well as inefficiencies in input use. The study also used two indicators of soil fertility (i.e., share of highly fertile land and share of not highly fertile land). Between these share of highly fertile land had positive impact on TE in rice productivity. Therefore, the study includes policy implications addressing the structural causes of land fragmentation and developing effective strategies to promote soil conservation.

Keywords: Rice productivity, Land fragmentation, Soil fertility, Technical efficiency, Stochastic production frontier

Location: 10 upazilas, 86 uninos, and 1,069 villages. Bakerganj upazila was selected from Barisal distric

Start Date: 00-00-2014

End Date: 00-00-2015

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Impact

Objectives:

The present study sets out to determine the impact of land fragmentation as well as soil fertility on Aus rice producers’ technical efficiency (TE), using a stochastic frontier model. For land fragmentation, the study used a set of indicators, fertilizer use was measured separately by active macronutrient contents and soil fertility was measured by asking farmers’ perceptions, as expressed by the share of highly fertile land and share of not highly fertile land.

Methodology:

Primary data pertains to a farm survey of rice producers collected during late 2015 in Barisal district located in the southern part of Bangladesh. The district is composed of 10 upazilas, 86 uninos, and 1,069 villages. Bakerganj upazila was selected from Barisal district. A total of 60 farm households were selected following a stratified random sampling procedure. Detailed input and output data were collected for the Aus rice of the production year 2014-2015. Among these households, a total of 45 households were producing Aus rice. For that reason, the analysis of this study use 45 households for Aus rice production. In order to measure the technical efficiency in a way consistent with the theory of production function, a Cobb-Douglas type stochastic frontier function was specified. The Cobb-Douglas form of production function has some well known properties that justify its wide application in economic literature (Henderson and Quandt, 1971). It is a homogeneous function that provides a scale factor enabling one to measure the returns to scale and to interpret the elasticity coefficients with relative ease. It is also easy to estimate and mathematically manipulate. It is less affected by multicollinearity problem and less suffered from degrees of freedom. The explicit Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function was used. The parameters of the stochastic frontier production function model are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood, using computer program-FRONTIER Version 4.1.

Source of Information: J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 14(1): 75–81, 2016 ISSN 1810-3030

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The mean technical efficiency was sixty one percent indicating that farmers can increase efficiency around 39 percent which is equivalent about 516.1299 kg yields per farm. So attention should be given in overall management of the farm, especially focusing on the inefficiency variables. Medium and low fertile land needs intensive cultivation through proper care that ensured higher TE efficiency. The findings of the study also showed that land fragmentation was one of the significant factors in explaining TE among farmers. The number of plots had positive effects on TE. The distance between homestead and plots was observed to have a statistically significant negative impact on TE. The study also reveals that the share of highly fertile land had positive impacts on TE. The adverse effects of land fragmentation should be resolved by policy instruments. Based on the findings of the study, policies are taken towards addressing the structural causes of land fragmentation. These include rethinking the law of inheritance, regulations to prevent land fragmentation.

Knowledge Management: Journal