Journal of Socialomics

Abstract

Measuring Production Efficiency of Sorghum Small Farmers in Rahad vAgricultural Scheme Season (2011-2012)

Mohamed OA Bushara and Asia Mustafa Mohammed Abuagla

The main objective of this paper is to measure the production efficiency of sorghum small farmers in the Rahad Scheme. The other objective is to identify the main factors behind the tenants in efficiency and socio-economic factors affecting the tenants’ level of efficiency; in the scheme. The paper used primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected by means of questionnaire for a sample of 120 farmers selected randomly from the northern and central divisions of Rahad Scheme. The data covered improved seeds cultural practices, number of irrigation’s, market factors and the socio-economic characteristics of tenants (sex, age, educational level, marital status, and family size). The secondary data were collected from different intuitional sources including the Central Bank of Sudan. Ministry of Agriculture and Forest and Rahad Agricultural Corporation. The Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) analysis was used to estimate the production efficiency. Descriptive statistics was also used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of farmers. The results showed that most estimated parameters of efficiency of stochastic frontier model for sorghum production of small farmers has expected signs. The mean production efficiency was 78% for sorghum crop. This means that tenants could increase their output by 22% through a better use of available resources. The improved seed and the insufficient number of irrigation and market factors (packaging-transportation-storage have significant impact on sorghum predation of small farmers in Rahad Scheme. Sowing date, location of the farm, experience of growing sorghum, harvesting operations and agricultural income had no significant impact on sorghum production. Working time in the field had a positive sign. This indicates that increase working time in the field would increase the yield. Tenants in age group of (25-35) years had the highest production efficiency and oldest tenants had the lowest production efficiency. The study recommended the improvement of education level of farmers, increasing the working time in field. provision of necessary funds for the cultural operation and the maintenance of irrigation channels to increase production efficiency.