Agricultural Risk Management and Production Efficiency among Peasant Farmers in Benue State, Nigeria

This study analysed relationship between agricultural risk management strategies and production efficiency among peasant farmers in Benue State, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected from randomly sampled 130 peasant farmers in Benue State using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse data collected. The study showed that majority of the respondents (45.54%) operated within a technical efficiency range of 0.50 and less than 0.90. Majority of the respondents (35.27%) operated within an allocative efficiency range of 0.0001 and less than 0.001. Majority of the respondents (37.50%) operated within an economic efficiency range of 0.0001 and less than 0.001. Technical efficiency among the respondents varied substantially ranging between 0.292 and 1.00, with a mean technical efficiency of 0.778. Allocative efficiency among the respondents varied widely ranging between 0.0001 and 0.869, with a mean allocative efficiency of 0.148. Economic efficiency among the respondents varied substantially ranging between 0.0001 and 0.869, with a mean economic efficiency of 0.127. There was a significant positive correlation between respondents’ predicted efficiencies and agricultural risk management strategies adopted by the respondents. Policy should be conscious of the need to ensure the combination of job creation and improvement of overall economic efficiency of the peasant farmers in order to enhance their productivity and income generation. There is the need to offer farmers more extension services in their critical areas of needs. This will help the farmers adopt risk mitigating measures that would further reduce or out rightly avert the negative effects of agricultural risks, thereby increasing their agricultural productivity and income. In addition, more rural farmers should be encouraged to join cooperative associations as this can increase their chances of mitigating the negative effects of agricultural risks due to the comparative advantages associated with membership of co-operative societies.