Farm Labour Structure and Technical Efficiency of Cocoa Farmers in Ago-Owu Farm Settlement, Osun State, Nigeria
Keywords:
Labour,, , Cocoa,, Technical Efficiency,, Cobb-Douglas,, , Stochastic Frontier,Abstract
This study investigated labour structure and technical efficiency of cocoa farmers in Ago-Owu farm settlement, Osun State, Nigeria using two-stage sampling procedure.144 farmers were selected as study sample while primary data were collected using structured questionnaire.
Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier production function.
Most (87.5%) of the farmers used family labour (FM) while 91.7% and 47.2% used casual hired labour (CHL) and permanent hired labour (PHL), respectively. However, 91.2%, 47.2%and 9.7% used CHL, PHL and FM for farm clearing, 70.8% used FM, while 47.2% and 18.1% used PHL and CHL for chemical application.
PHL (47.2%) and CHL (65.3%) were used for harvesting while 87.5% used FM. FM (87.5%) was used for on-farm processing, while 93.1%, 77.1%, 78.5% and
51.4% employed male for clearing, planting, chemical application, and harvesting, respectively but 61.8% and 77.8% used female for fertilizer application and on-farm processing. MLE revealed a sigma (δ2) and gamma (ᵧ) values of 0.272 and 0.526, respectively.
The RTS was 0.1019 and TE varied between 0.20 and 0.96 with mean of 0.76.
Farm size (β=0.418), quantities of chemicals (β=0.372) and hired labour (β=0.250), significantly affected the output of cocoa.
TE was significantly influenced by sex(δ=-15.019), square age of farmers (δ=15.683), household size (δ=-1.004), education(δ=-0.088), farm size (δ=0.113), age of farm (δ=-5.227), squared age of farm (δ=27.775), CHL (δ=0.427), PHL (δ=-0.250) and cost of hired labour(δ=-37.977).
Mechanization and herbicides usage should be encouraged to reduce drudgery and undue spending on hired labour.
