Effects of flooding-induced migration on farm technical efficiency in Rivers State, Nigeria

This study assessed the effects of flooding-induced migration on farm technical efficiency in Rivers State. Data were collected on episodes that occurred between 2011 and 2022 to estimate the trend of flooding in the study area and also farm technical efficiency (TE), specifically from 2022 production activities. Translog Stochastic frontier was estimated and TE generated. The effect of migration on farm’s TE was analyzed using endogenous treatment effect model and the average treatment effects were estimated. Results obtained showed that flooding episodes occurred yearly in the twelve years under review. The Stochastic frontier analysis showed that migration has a positive and significant coefficient in the inefficiency model, thus depicting that migration increases technical inefficiency. The TE results showed that migrants operate at 71.17 % efficiency and non-migrants at 74.63 %. This shows that both groups of farmers have room for improvement to achieve efficient production. The result of average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) is significant, with a mean difference of negative 3.85 % and also significant for the untreated (ATU) with 2.01 % value of mean difference. This means that the TE of migrants reduced by 3.85 percent and their expected TE will increase by 2.01 percent if they are not faced with flooding problems and did not migrate. This shows that migration indeed, as seen in the technical inefficiency model, affects TE. It is recommended that government and stakeholders should initiate and execute projects meant to curb flooding in these communities. The ministry of agriculture should engage the Famers in educational activities on how to manage their farms, combine crops, and proper fertilizer and labour usage for optimum output. These will improve their farm technical efficiency. • Flooding occurs yearly in the study area and forces farmers to relocate each year. • Farmers stop farm activities each year for three months and relocate. • Affected farmers loose crop output to flooding devastation. • Both the migrants and non-migrants alike operate below optimum. • Managerial skills and optimum labour use were found lacking in these areas.