Parametric Analysis of Rice Crop Technical Efficiency and Technological Change of four Provinces of the Pakistan. (A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Approach)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out the factor which affects the efficiency and productivity of the rice crop of the four provinces of Pakistan. The study analyzed the total factor productivity of rice crop of the four provinces during the period 1980-2018.The study examined the impact of different inputs on the rice production as well as the effect of inputs efficiency and technological change on the rice production. The study used panel data and labour, arable land, irrigated land, petroleum consumption, electricity, fertilizer, credit availability, no of tube well, water availability and literacy rate were used as inputs. The study applied parametric stochastic frontier analysis technique and used Battese and Coelli model (1992, 1995). The study used stata 14 for the analysis of data. The study found that literacy rate, petroleum consumption, electricity consumption, credit availability; water availability, fertilizer and number of tube wells have significant effect on the rice production. The study found technological change effect on rice crop where time trend (years) used for technological change while time varying technical efficiency score gaps among the four provinces have been found in rice production, which were 88%, 82%, 81% and 51% for Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber pukhtunkhwa respectively. The study suggested that to improve total factor productivity of rice crop of Pakistan and its provinces then government should give due attention to the use of modern technology, as well also transfers technology and resources to all provinces equally. One of the other factors which will be helpful in crops productivity growth is improvement in the management practices in order to increase the efficiency of the inputs used in the process of production. To obtain the gains in the inputs technical efficiency change more emphasis should be given to information and knowledge rather than the conventional inputs such as water fertilizer etc.