Does agricultural cooperative membership impact technical efficiency of maize production in Nigeria: An analysis correcting for biases from observed and unobserved attributes

The formation of agricultural cooperatives has been widely promoted as an agricultural development policy initiative to help smallholder farmers cope with multiple production and marketing challenges. Using a nationally representative survey dataset of smallholder maize producers from rural Nigeria,...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 16; no. 1; p. e0245426
Main Authors Olagunju, Kehinde Oluseyi, Ogunniyi, Adebayo Isaiah, Oyetunde-Usman, Zainab, Omotayo, Abiodun Olusola, Awotide, Bola Amoke
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 22.01.2021
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Agricultural cooperatives
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Agriculture, Cooperative
Bias
Biology and Life Sciences
Corn
Crop production
Economic aspects
Efficiency
Empirical analysis
Evaluation
Farm management
Farmers
Farming
Food security
Households
Industrial efficiency
People and Places
Research and Analysis Methods
Risk management
Risk taking
Rural areas
Selectivity
Stochasticity
Technology adoption
Nigeria
United Kingdom > UK
Ethiopia
Africa
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ISSN1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI10.1371/journal.pone.0245426

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Summary:The formation of agricultural cooperatives has been widely promoted as an agricultural development policy initiative to help smallholder farmers cope with multiple production and marketing challenges. Using a nationally representative survey dataset of smallholder maize producers from rural Nigeria, this study assesses the impact of agricultural cooperative membership on technical efficiency (TE). We based our estimation approach on the combination of a newly developed sample selection stochastic production frontier model with propensity score matching to control for possible selectivity biases from both observables and unobservables. We estimate stochastic meta-frontiers to examine TE differences between cooperative members and non-members. Our results reveal that TE levels of members are consistently higher than that of non-members. This calls for continued policy incentives targeted at encouraging farmers to form as well as participate in agricultural cooperatives.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0245426