APPLICATION OF STOCHASTIC FRONTIER ANALYSIS ON CATFISH (Clarias gariepinus) PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

The study applied Stochastic Frontier Analysis on catfish production systems in Delta Stateof Nigeria to determine the farmers’ levels of technical efficiency under the productionsystems adopted in the study area. Structured questionnaire were used to elicit responsesfrom 538 catfish farmers who provided suitable information from the 561 sampled farmers.Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socioeconomic characteristics and for theproduction systems, stochastic frontier production function was used to estimate the technicalefficiency of farmers. Results from the study shown that about 61.71% of the farmers weremale, married (86.62%) and 52.97% of them operating on full time. The pond systems usedare as follows: earthen pond (27.51%), concrete pond (33.83%) and plastic/tarpaulin pond(38.66%) respectively by the farmers with an average pond size of 629.63m2 in the studyarea. The mean levels of technical efficiency (TE) of the farmers under the productionsystems were earthen pond (0.77), concrete pond (0.76) and plastic/tarpaulin pond (0.73)respectively. The average TE level in the study area was 0.84; operating about 16% belowthe frontier. The results further revealed the returns to scale (RTS) of the farmers underproduction systems as earthen pond (0.086), concrete pond (0.089), plastic/tarpaulin pond(0.099) and the study area was 0.070 respectively. The results from the inefficiency modelestimated showed that age, household size, educational level and catfish productionexperience were the major factors that influenced the technical inefficiency of the catfishfarmers. The study concludes that the technical efficiency levels could be improved andmaintained if the inefficiencies accounted for by the socio-economic conditions of the catfishfarmers are addressed. The right and supporting policies to minimize inefficiencies resourcesuse and improve catfish production should be put in place by the authorities concerned.Keywords: stochastic frontier, production function, technical efficiency, inefficiencymodel, factors, catfish, farmers, nigeria