Technical Efficiency of Pineapple Production in Osun State, Nigeria

Pineapple is one of the most important fruits in Nigeria and it had been identified that the country has comparative advantage in its production. However, there is need for empirical studies on the technical efficiency of its production. This paper presents the analysis of technical efficiency of pineapple production in Osun state, Nigeria using stochastic frontier production function and resource use efficiency. Primary data was collected from 120 pineapple farmers using multi stage sampling technique. Results revealed that quantity of suckers and labour used in pineapple production was positive and significant at 5% while farm size was significant at 1%. The returns to scale indicated that a unit increase in all the specified production inputs will lead to a more than proportionate increase in pineapple yield by 2.1%. The mean technical efficiency of the pineapple farmers indicated that an average farmer could obtain about 93% of output from a given mix of inputs. The estimated gamma parameter revealed that 81.4% of the variation in output among the pineapple farmers was due to disparities in technical efficiency. Resource use efficiency indicated underutilization of suckers and overutilization of other specified production inputs. The study therefore recommends that farmers should cut down the use of resources that were over utilized and increase the quantity of suckers used in the production of the commodity for optimal productivity