This study examined the impact of farmers＇ health on labor data was collected through a field survey of 290 rural households productivity of female farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Primary Descriptive statistics and es...This study examined the impact of farmers＇ health on labor data was collected through a field survey of 290 rural households productivity of female farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Primary Descriptive statistics and estimation of efficiency following maximum likelihood estimation （MLE） procedure available in Frontier 4.1 were used to analyze the data. Results from the analyses showed that malaria has the highest prevalence level among female farmers in the study area followed by typhoid fever. The causes of sicknesses vary from cold, stress, mosquito bites and bad drinking water. Furthermore, the results showed that sicknesses affect the productivity of farmers by reducing their work capacity. Also, the distance to source of drinking water from home, source of drinking water, age, body mass index of farmers are also found to significantly affect the physical work output of farmers in the study area. The result shows that the distribution of farmers was highly skewed with about 99% of the farmers having their efficiency above 0.61. This indicates that majority of the farmers are technically efficient in the allocation of resources to crop production, The result also shows that the average efficiency was about 82.9%. Thus, the farmers＇ level of efficiency can be improved if there is a shift in the fi＇ontier, i.e. if factors contributing to inefficiency are adequately controlled. The study recommends the need to invest more on human capital especially health for there to be an improvement in rural productivity. Also, rural development policies should include health policies especially for women since it has a great influence on the household and emphasis should also be on preventive rather than curative health services.展开更多
文摘This study examined the impact of farmers＇ health on labor data was collected through a field survey of 290 rural households productivity of female farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Primary Descriptive statistics and estimation of efficiency following maximum likelihood estimation （MLE） procedure available in Frontier 4.1 were used to analyze the data. Results from the analyses showed that malaria has the highest prevalence level among female farmers in the study area followed by typhoid fever. The causes of sicknesses vary from cold, stress, mosquito bites and bad drinking water. Furthermore, the results showed that sicknesses affect the productivity of farmers by reducing their work capacity. Also, the distance to source of drinking water from home, source of drinking water, age, body mass index of farmers are also found to significantly affect the physical work output of farmers in the study area. The result shows that the distribution of farmers was highly skewed with about 99% of the farmers having their efficiency above 0.61. This indicates that majority of the farmers are technically efficient in the allocation of resources to crop production, The result also shows that the average efficiency was about 82.9%. Thus, the farmers＇ level of efficiency can be improved if there is a shift in the fi＇ontier, i.e. if factors contributing to inefficiency are adequately controlled. The study recommends the need to invest more on human capital especially health for there to be an improvement in rural productivity. Also, rural development policies should include health policies especially for women since it has a great influence on the household and emphasis should also be on preventive rather than curative health services.
