Technical Efficiency of Wheat Growers in District Swabi of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study was conducted to estimate the technical efficiency of wheat growers in Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A four stage random sampling technique was used to collect data from 160 respondents. Stochastic frontier production (SFP) function was used to analyze the technical efficiency of wheat growers. The Maximum Likelihood estimates of the model-1 showed that seed quantity, urea, chemicals (Pesticides and weedicides), labor and tractor hours were statistically significant with the coefficients of -0.027, 0.090, 0.060, 0.223 and 0.056, respectively. The estimated results of SFP model-2 revealed that household’s education level was having negative and significant effect on technical inefficiency. Among the sampled respondents owners were technically more inefficient as compared to the tenants. Farm size was having negative and significant effect on inefficiency while age and farming experience of the sampled respondents were statistically insignificant. It is recommended that extension department should train farmers to improve their farming skills and provide them formal as well as informal education to enhance the technical efficiency of wheat growers.