Technical Efficiency of Soybean Production in Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Soybean cultivation in Maharashtra is concentrated in two regions: Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra. Around 90% of the soybean production of the state is contributed by these two regions. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the technical efficiency of soybean in Vidarbha region of Maharshtra. For the present study Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state was selected .The study was based on primary data pertained to the year 2012-2013.For estimating technical efficiency of soybean growing farmers, stochastic production function approach was used. The study revealed that High value of (y) 0.99 in Akola district, 0.99in Amravati district, 0.99 in Yavatmal district, 0.91 in Wardha district and 0.99 in Nagpur district indicates the presence of significant inefficiencies in the production of soybean crop. The stochastic frontier analysis has further shown that 99, 99, 99, 91, and 99 per cent of observed inefficiency was due to farmer's inefficiency in decision making and only 1, 1, 1, 9, and 1 per cent of it was due to random factors outside their control in the case of all the farmers in the selected district. Further, it was observed that the allocative efficiency were 80 percent in Akola, 90 percent in Amravati, 88 percent in Yavatmal, 84 percent in Wardha and 84 percent in Nagpur and economic efficiency 57 percent in Akola, 68 percent in Amravati, 98 percent in Buldana, 62 percent in Yavatmal, 53 percent in Wardha and 54 percent in Nagpur. It means that there prevails allocative inefficiency to the extent of 20 per cent in Akloa district,10 percent in Amravati district,12 percent in Yavatmal district, 16 percent in Wardha district and 16 percent in Nagpur district's average farmers in comparison with the progressive farmer who obtained maximum yield.