Off-season onion production in North Benin: An analysis of technical efficiency through the stochastic approach

Abstract

Although Benin has considerable agricultural potential, national onion production is still unable to satisfy the population's needs. This inability of the sector to meet domestic needs is attributable in part to inefficiency in the use of productive resources. In order to examine the technical efficiency of onion production in North Benin, a field survey was conducted among 120 randomly selected market gardeners in the municipalities of Malanville and Karimama. Descriptive statistics, the Cobb-Douglas production frontier function and the Tobit regression model were used as analysis tools. The results indicate that onions are grown by young (39 years old), formally educated (24%) people with more than 23 years of agricultural experience. The estimation of the production function shows that the average level of technical efficiency achieved by producers is 57%. The lowest level of efficiency is 11% while the highest is 93%. Literacy in the local language, the use of certified seeds, the use of organic matter and the use of trays as a support for onion cultivation positively and significantly influence the level of technical efficiency of producers at the 1%, 1%, 5% and 10% thresholds respectively. These results suggest a capacity building of producers to improve the level of efficiency in onion production in North Benin.