Regional technical efficiency and technology gap differences: The empirical evidence from rice farms in Bangladesh

Using the stochastic meta-frontier approach, this study compares the technical efficiency (TE) and technology gap ratio (TGR) of different climate sub-regions in Bangladesh with heterogeneous technology adoption among rice farmers using nationally representative cross-sectional data from 13,113 rice plots across all climatic sub-zones. This particular method enabled the calculation of comparable TE and TGR for rice farms operating under different technologies. Empirical results shows that the mean TE ranged from 68% to 78% across the climatic zones. Accordingly, the farmers in the northwestern zone were the most technically efficient (78%) and had the highest mean TGR (83%), implying that these farmers adopted the most advanced technologies. Contrastingly, the farmers in the southeastern zone had the lowest adoption of advanced technology. Moreover, this study found that household head age, education, land ownership, and agriculture as major income are the major drivers of TE. Increasing investment in research and development, strong extension services including farmer training need to diffuse climate zone-specific technologies, crop management practices, and efficient use of resources at the farm level. However, the diversity of characteristics of region explains the use of various types of production technologies, resulting in a technology gap that slows the economic convergence of these regions.