Assessment of gender differentials in economic and technical efficiency of poultry egg, a case study in Lagos State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Gender has been seen as an important factor in the distribution and utilization of productive resources worldwide. In the agricultural sector, gender differential could influence the sourcing and efficient utilization of factors of production, particularly in the livestock sub-sector ofthe economy. This study assessed the gender differentials in economic and technical efficiency of poultry eggs production in Lagos State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used to select respondent poultry farmers. The first and second stages were the purposive selection of five Local Government Areas (LGAs) reputed for poultry production and farm settlements in the state. The third stage involved a simple random sampling of 150 poultry farms consisting of 75 farms each managed by a male and a female Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The SFA revealed that for male management of poultry egg farms, labour input (p<0.01) and cost of medications (p<0.05) increased the poultry egg output. On the other hand, for female management, stock of birds (p<0.01), labor input (p<0.01) and feed cost (p<0.01) were the factors that increased poultry eggs output. The inefficiency model revealed that male farmers were more technically efficient (p<0.01) than female counterparts. Female managed poultry farms had less productivity (0.90) compared to males (1.22). However, 88.1% of male farms compared to 86.7% of female farms had economic efficiency ratios between 0.29 and 0.79. The study concluded that gender had impact on poultry farmers’ efficiency in the study area. The study therefore recommended that training should be organised for female managed farms while male managed farms should utilize less of cost intensive capital input.