AN Estimation of Frontier Production Functions and the Technical Efficiencies Of Wheat Farmers of the Gezira Scheme

Abstract

Abstract A frontier production function of Cobb−Douglas type is used to estimate the technical efficiency of the wheat tenants of the Gezira Scheme. The technical efficiency for the farm operator is defined in terms of the ratio of its mean production to the corresponding mean production if the farm effect was zero. The model is applied in the analysis of farm level data from a random sample of the wheat tenant farmers in the Gezira Scheme. Estimates of the productive efficiency of individual tenant farmers are found to be very law, ranged between 0.274 and 0.713, and the bulky of them − about 52% scored a rate of technical eficiency less than or equal to 0.400.