The study examined the technical efficiency and productivity of yam in Kogi States of Nigeria. Specifically the study examined the socioeconomic characteristics of yam producers in Kogi State, determined the technical efficiency and productivity of yam farmers in the study areas and made recommendations on ways of improving the efficiency of yam production in Kogi State. Primary data were collected using a set of structured questionnaire from 200 selected Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) contact yam farmers from the State. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in selecting the farmers. The first stage was a purposive sampling of 5 Local Government Areas (LGAs) each from Kogi States. The LGAs selected were Omala, Ofu, Ankpa, Dekina and Ida. This was based on the high concentration of the population of yam producers and the availability of market for yam products. The second stage involved a simple random sampling of 5 villages from each LGA and 8 yam farmers from each village. In all 200 yam farmers were interviewed by trained enumerators. Out of the 200 only 144 copies of the questionnaires were found adequate and used in the analysis for the study. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation, as well as the stochastic frontier production function. Results from the study showed that on the average more males (98.6%) were involved in yam production as compared to 1.4% in the case of female. The mean age of farmers was 53 years. The average years of schooling by farmers was about 4 years suggesting that the farmers were not well educated. The average farming years was 25 years. In terms of cropping pattern all the farmers practiced sole yam cropping. Their average farm sizes were 0.97 ha. The technical efficiency of the farmers in the State varied. The technical efficiency of farmers varied from 0.05 to 0.95 with a mean of 0.62, while only about 23% of the farmers had technical efficiencies exceeding 0.80. The results also showed that yam production was profitable in State with net profit of N 108,299.67 ha-1.
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