An Estimation of Technical Efficiency of Strawberry Production in District Charsadda Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The study used a Stochastic Frontier Approach for measuring the technical efficiency of strawberry production at farm level. For this purpose data has been collected from 382 randomly selected strawberry producers of two purposively selected villages of district Charsadda. Out of 382 producers 176 were located in Tebana Dhere and 206 in Sarkai village. It is find out that 47% of land area was under the cultivation of strawberry with average production of 2898 kilogram per acre. The per acre average values of land preparation, NPK fertilizer, labor, seedling, farm yard manure and pesticides were recorded 6.00 hrs, 248 kgs, 143 man days, 24413 seedling, 1.48 trollies and 1.21 litres respectively. The results also showed that strawberry producers were having 81% of mean technical efficiency with minimum to maximum technical efficiency limits of 0.42% to 0.98% respectively. Moreover out of 382 the technical efficiency of 178 farmers was more than 90%. Furthermore, farmers with more years of schooling, greater age, smaller farm size, greater experience and obtained credit were having 82%, 83%, 83%, 87% and 84% technical efficiency respectively. The study results suggested that’ education, training and credit availability can play a significant role in increasing the output efficiency of strawberry farmers in the study area.