Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Maize Production in Phayao Province

In Thailand, maize is an important economic crop, and the majority in Phayao Province is used as a major input in the livestock and biofuel industries. Nevertheless, production has faced declining areas of cultivation, unstable yields and low technical efficiency. Cobb Douglas stochastic frontier model and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) are used in evaluating the technical efficiency of maize farming in Phayao using primary survey data of maize farmers. Analysis of data set with FRONTIER 4.1 indicates a mean technical efficiency of 0.85 which means that there is 15% potential yield that could be achieved with better use of resources. The most significant key inputs are fertilizer (β = 0.28), land (β = 0.20), and seed (β = 0.18). Education, access to credit, access to extension services and group membership play a role in reducing the level of inefficiency. Output variation is mainly due to external shocks as the gamma value (0.925) indicates. Policy to increase farmer knowledge, improve institutional support and optimize inputs is informed by the study.