TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF RICE PRODUCTION IN NAKHON RATCHASIMA

Abstract

This study is the analysis of the technical efficiency of rice production in Nakhon Ratchasima, which involves with household economy production and recognition unit, cost and compensation and technical efficiency of rice production. The target group was a representative of Jasmine rice farmers' households for 2015-2016 crop year and was used as a simple random sampling method. 400 questionnaires were collected as research data, which contain the statistical IOC quantitative data of 0.87, cost analysis and comparison, which including mean and percentage, as well as providentially inferential statistics to the estimation of a production frontier model of Cobb-Douglas Stochastic Production Function that was transformed into a Natural Logarithm, which showed the weak rice production. The estimation of rice production’s technical performance and analysis found that 4 types of inputs: 1) Rice seed volume farming that effected rice yield at 99% confidence level, 2) Rice farming in the irrigated area affected on rice yield at 95% confidence level, 3) Number of laborers used in production and transplanted rice that affects yield a confidence level of 90%, and 4) Weed protection and other fertilizers including manure, bio fertilizers and hormones showed the result of the amount of rice at the confidence level was below 90 %, and most of the farmers 83%, were the average technical efficiency was 91.67%. However, the factors that were affected by the technical efficiency of rice production were the inefficiency of the rice growing area. The negative effect on confidence at 95% confidence level was 0.02, implies that if the farmers increased 1% in the area of rice cultivation, the efficiency improvement would be 0.02. Thus, the better reducing labor costs, use of long-term chemical fertilizers and irrigation systems development were essential for farmers.