Impact of Farmer Fields Schools on Technical Efficiency of Tobacco growers: A Case Study of District Swabi Pakistan

摘要

Tobacco is one of the agricultural commodities which is widely produced around the world. In Pakistan out of all the provinces, KPK is famous for tobacco production and particularly district Swabi for the production of the Flue Cured Virginia tobacco; as its agronomic and environmental conditions are suitable for its production. In agriculture sector the improvements in efficiency and introduction of new technology can enhance productivity. Agricultural productivity in the short-term can be enhanced by improvements in efficiency as the acquisition rate of new technology is quite low in Pakistan. The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach is one of the ways to improve the efficiency in agriculture sector. Hence the study is conducted to examine the effect of FFS on efficiency of tobacco growers in the district Swabi. Using the stochastic production frontier approach and propensity score matching technique, the study revealed that FFS played a significant role in enhancing the efficiency of tobacco farmers in Swabi. That is, the tobacco production of the Treated group was significantly greater than that of the Control group. This difference in the efficiency was accountable to the extension visit which is a source of knowledge dissemination among the farmers.