On the Efficiency Performance of Bitter Leaf Farming by Cooperative Members in Anambra State, Nigeria

The study on the efficiency performance of bitter leaf farming by cooperative members in Anambra State, Nigeria used a restrictive Cobb Douglas stochastic frontier approach; production and cost function after testing the null hypothesis for model appropriateness to analyze the data and later predict the technical and economic efficiencies. Data were collected from a cross-section of 205 randomly selected bitter leaf farmers who are members of agricultural cooperatives. The study revealed that fertilizer and labour are the important inputs for bitter leaf production in the area. The study witnessed under-utilization of fertilizer inputs, we, therefore, advised that farm managers should reduce the volume of fertilizer given to the farmers by 54.95% or that policymakers should increase the price of fertilizer available to the farmers by 54.95%. The technical efficiency was found as 77.0% implying that farmers are operating 23.0% below their optimum. For bitter leaf farmers to attain cost-efficiency, they would have to save costs by 3.72%, while cost-inefficient farmer would save 19.35% cost. But, in the short run, the farmers still reserve the chance to increase cost (economic) efficiency by 4.2% through adopting improve agricultural technology. Years of formal education and household size improve the technical efficiency of farmers, while only household size improves economic efficiency. This study is crucial at this time the world needs to grow crops that have so much medicinal value to tackle the menace of the Covid-19 pandemic.