Technical efficiency of wheat production in punjab (pakistan): A cropping zone wise analysis

The study was conducted to analyze the technical efficiency in wheat production across major cropping zones of the punjab (pakistan) through cobb-douglas production frontier. it was based on the cross sectional data of the wheat crop for the year 2009-10,collected from a random sample of seventy households each from mixed,cotton-wheat,rice-wheat and rain-fed zones. the mean technical efficiency of wheat production was 76.2,83.5,76.9 and 57.4 per cent in mixed,cotton-wheat,rice-wheat and rain-fed zone,respectively. the results signify that there is a scope to increase wheat productivity through technical efficiency improvements under existing conditions of input use and technology. in the irrigated zones,use of farm yard manure contributed positively to wheat production; the coefficients were significant (15% level) for cotton-wheat and rice-wheat (1% level) zones. number of irrigations applied to wheat crop also contributed positively to wheat production and the coefficient was significant (5% level) for cotton-wheat zone. in the rain-fed zone,moisture availability (1% level),farm yard manure use (15% level) and balanced use of fertilizer at 10% level (nitrogen-phosphorus ratio) contributed significantly to wheat production. on the other hand,seed rate contributed negatively to the crop production in the mixed and cotton-wheat and rain-fed zones and the coefficients were significant for mixed and rain-fed zones. however,seed rate had a positive and significant contribution to wheat production in rice-wheat zone. the inefficiency in wheat production was due to incidences of technical or financial problems,age of the main wheat variety at the farms in irrigated areas and due to wheat crop acreage at the farms in the both irrigated as well as rain-fed zones.