Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Family Poultry Production in Kurmi local Government Area of Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract: This study assessed the socio "“ economic characteristics and technical efficiency of family poultry production in Kurmi Local Government Area of Taraba state, Nigeria. The result of the study reveals that the respondents are relatively young with mean age of 44 years. Findings from the study showed that female constitutes 60% of the family poultry producers in the study area. The result also reveals that the main reason for rearing family poultry is for sales.The technical efficiency estimate showed that the technical efficiency of family poultry ranges between 0.29 and 0.84, with a mean of 0.63. This indicates that on the average, the respondents are 63% efficient in the use of combination of their inputs. Return on investment (ROI) is 0.76 meaning that family poultry is highly profitable. This high profitability should attract financing by lending institutions. The elasticity estimate of 3.18 indicates that the family poultry production is taking place at stage 1 (inefficient stage) in production curve. This study concludes that the output and technical efficiency of the family poultry production can be increased by the use of more feed, capital, medicine/vaccine and adoption of more innovations.