Factor Affecting Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Rubber Farming

With the increase of rubberproduction, Para rubber farmers in Northeastern Thailand have faced the limitedphysical and socio-economic conditions that have given rise to the improvementof technical efficiency. This study investigated the technical efficiency ofPara rubber farmers. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used tocollect cross sectional data on 300 farmers. The data was analyzed usingdescriptive statistics and stochastic frontier analysis. The results revealedthat the variance of gamma and sigma squared of the frontier productionfunction was significant at a level of p = 0.01. All inputs (exceptchemical fertilizer) are major factors that have influenced the changes in theoutput of Para rubber production. The mean technical efficiency index for thefarmers was found to be 0.573 and the efficiency factors, which were comprisedof age of farmers, education, gender and age of the rubber trees, were found tobe the significant factors that affected the variation in technical efficiencyamong the farmers. The policy implication of the study is that technicalefficiency of Para rubber could be increased by 42.7% by improving the use ofavailable resources. Thus, the government should give more education aboutrubber production, including tapping trees and managing farms because thiseducation will impact the knowledge that can be applied to farming techniquesin order to enhance efficiency.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/agricultural-sciences/american-research-journal-of-agriculture/