Impact of resource ownership and input market access on Bangladeshi paddy growers’ efficiency

Through a translog stochastic frontier model this study analyzes technical efficiency of Bangladeshi paddy growers and identifies factors explaining farm level inefficiency. A farmer can significantly raise production by increasing quantity of land, total labour and fertilizer in the paddy production. Use of organic manure also significantly contributes in paddy production. Among all the production inputs land has the most dominant impact on production. The estimated mean technical efficiency score of 78% implies that there are substantial scopes to increase paddy production through enhancing farm efficiency. The important efficiency influencing factors are ownership of land and machinery, farm location, access to credit, share of own supplied labour and seed to total requirement and capital constraint. The small farmers are more efficient than the marginal, medium and large farmers. Among different categories of households, higher mean technical efficiency scores are found with the food secured households, households having no earning from outside agriculture, households belonging to lower expenditure group and farmers cultivating paddy only in own land. Finally, the article offers some explanations for these results and suggests some policy options for improving farm efficiency.