Analysis of the Technical Inefficiency of Rubber Tapping in

Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria Benin City, Edo State. Time series data of 129 tappers were analyzed using stochastic frontier analysis. The tappers were sampled using simple random sampling technique. The result of the stochastic frontier production function revealed that the variance of parameters (gamma and sigma squared) of the frontier production function were both significant at p<0.01. There were substantial variations in estimated efficiencies ranging from 0.38 for the least practiced tapper and 0.99 for the best tapper with a mean technical efficiency of 0.72. However, the inefficiency model revealed that education, training and gender were found to have significant effect on tappers efficiency at one percent probability level. It was however recommended that addressing the tappers specific factors would reduce inefficiency in rubber tapping