Dtermination of technical efficiency with production risk of rice: A case study in Marvdasht township of Fars province

Rice is considered as one of the important crop products in Marvdasht township of Fars province. About 60 percent of rice of provinceis produced in this township. Since the turnover increscent of production factors through efficiency improvement,­was one of the most important issues in each country’s agricultural economics, the main purpose of this study was to measure the level of technical efficiency with regard to production risk of rice producers.A sample of 144 producers in the main rice growing areas of kamfirouz region of Marvdasht Township was selected 16 villages by two stage cluster sampling method. Data were then collected through interviews for farming year of 2009-2010.Technical efficiency of rice producers were estimated using translog stochastic frontier production functions, Also, effects of various social and economical factors were then studied on the level of producers technical efficiencies. Based on the results of this study, it was found that average technical efficiency for rice growers was 83 percent. There is much discrepancies between technical efficiency of the best rice producers with that of the others. Therefore, it is possible to Production increase potential have been 16 percent. The main social-economic factors affecting the technical inefficiency of rice producers have been age of farmer, educational levels, farmer’s experience, size of land units under rice cultivation, owner ship of land, and membership in production cooperative. Consequently, the marginal output risk estimates of the inputs are presented, only Fertilizers consumption have significant effect on the changes production. Nitrate fertilizer was found to be risk-increasing, whereas Phosphoric fertilizer was found to be a risk-reducing input.