Impact of Irrigation Ecology on Rice ProductionEfficiency in Ghana

Abstract

Irrigation production is a means by which agricultural production can be increased to meet the growing food demands in the world.This study evaluated the effect of irrigation ecology on farm household technical, allocative, and economic efficiency of smallholderrice farmers. Cross-sectional data was obtained from 350 rice farmers across rain fed and irrigation ecologies. Stochastic frontieranalyses are used to estimate the production efficiency and endogenous treatment effect regression model is used to estimate theimpact of irrigation ecology on rice production efficiency. The impact of irrigation ecology on technical efficiency is about 0.05,which implies farmers producing under irrigation ecology are more technically efficient in their rice production than those inrain fed production. The impact of irrigation ecology on allocative efficiency is about 0.33, which shows that farmers participatingin irrigation farming are more allocatively efficient in their rice production than those in rain fed production. The impact oneconomic efficiency is about 0.23, meaning that farmers participating in irrigation farming are more economically efficient in theirrice production than those in rain fed production. Irrigation ecology has positive impact on production efficiency; hence farmersshould be encouraged to produce more under irrigation for increased yield and profit.