Performance Gap between Best-bet System of Rice Intensification and Farmers’ Practices in Zamfara State, Nigeria: An Additive-Multiplicative Translog Stochastic Frontier Profit Function

Inadequate information about the performance of a technology can hinder its uptake. The aim of this paper was to provide a thorough examination of the performance gap between the best bet system of rice intensification (BB-SRI) and farmers’ practices (FP) in Zamfara State, Nigeria. Using a multi-stage sampling technique, a sample of 300 rice farmers were selected from the Bakolori Irrigation Scheme, Zamfara State, among which 40 farmers (13%) used the BB-SRI while the remaining 260 farmers (87%) used FP. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, farm budget technique, additive-multiplicative stochastic frontier translog profit function and propensity score matching (PSM) estimator. The findings revealed that yield increased from 5,285 kg/ha with FP to 12,735 kg/ha with BB-SRI, an increase of 141%. Rice production was profitable under both FP and BB-SRI with return on investment (ROI) increasing from 2.64 using FP to 6.66 under BB-SRI, an increase of 152%. There was evidence of profit inefficiency in rice farming since the profit could still be raised by 7% and 21% using FP and BB-SRI, respectively. The yield, ROI and profit efficiency gaps between the BB-SRI and FP ranged from 7,452 kg/ha to 7,510 kg/ha, 4.02 to 4.05, and from 0.08 to 0.09, respectively. We recommend therefore that important investments and training in SRI should be considered as a top priority for the transformation and sustainability of the rice sector in order to ensure its successful promotion, uptake and diffusion across other rice producing States in Nigeria.