ANALYSIS OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF PEPPER PRODUCTION AMONG FARMERS IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA.

Pepper is indispensable in every home and it has great potential for value addition due to the perishable nature of the crop. Inefficient resource use in production prevents farmers from realizing optimum returns from production while efficient resource use leads to food security and employment generations. The study examined efficiency of resource use of pepper production in Kano State, Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted in the selection of 60 farmers from three Local Government Areas of the state. A well-structured and pretested questionnaire was used to obtain information on socio-economic characteristics and other relevant variables. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier production. The result of the stochastic production frontier shows that seed, hired labour, and fertilizer are significant at 5% and positively affect pepper output. The significant determinants of farm specific technical efficiency of growers of pepper are farm experience and household size (P<0.05). Household size was found to contribute negatively to technical efficiency while farming experience increased farmers technical efficiency. The problems of pepper production in the study area were inadequate access to inputs (50%), low price (33.3%), pest and disease infestation (15%) and inadequate capital access (1.7%). Availability of inputs such as seed and fertilizer at affordable prices to facilitate production at the frontier and sustainability are among policy options suggested by the study.