| Abstract: | Agricultural production efficiency in four irrigated cropping regions of the Punjab province of Pakistan was compared on the basis of a probabilistic frontier production function estimated from whole-farm survey data for the year 1984-85. It is found that the gross income of farmers can be increased by 13% at the current levels of resource use if the production gap between ‘best practice’ and ‘average’ farmers is suitably narrowed in all cropping regions. This will increase profits by up to 40%. No significant difference in technical efficiency was found across the regions. Economic efficiency was similar across all cropping regions except in the cotton region, which had significantly lower economic efficiency due to higher allocative inefficiency, which in turn was attributable to the more dynamic production technologies being adopted in that region. |
