Estimating Farm Level Financing Gap and Allocative Efficiency Among Tomato Producers in North West, Nigeria

The study estimates farm level financing gap and allocative efficiency among tomato producers in North West, Nigeria. Primary data are collected based on a well-structured questionnaire. The result shows that the significant stimulus influencing technical efficiency of tomato producers are farm size, seed, fertilizer, chemical, and labour. The significant regressors influencing technical inefficiency of tomato producers are age, amount of credit received, years of experience, educational level, and extension contact. The addition of first order derivatives of the production factors which is called the scale efficiency shows the decreasing return to scale in the frontier version adding up to 0.9748. The outcomes of the allocative efficiency [r] show that tomato producers under-utilized seed, land, fertilizer, chemical, and labour. The mean amount of finance (credit) per season the tomato producers had obtained is N 54,470, while the mid-estimate of financing gap (FINGAP) in the form of finance (credit) needed to produce (yield) at the frontier stage is N 312,641.66, this shows a credit shortfall of about 82.57%. Filling the FINGAP of smallholder tomato producers would increase the efficiency and productivity of rice farmers to meet the rise in demand.