Production structure and technical efficiency analysis of sericulture in Pakistani Punjab

The objective of this paper are to study the sericulture production structure and the analysis of farm-level technical efficiency measures. The results show that most of the farmers involved in this enterprise are illiterate. This industry is further characterised by inappropraite rearing sheds, complete lack of extension service, dependence on government forests for mulbery leaves - facing peak season shortage, supply of poor quality silkworm seed and improper processing and marketing facilities. Labour shares more than 70 percent of the total cost of production and however, promises reasonably high return on investment. Stochastic production frontier analysis indicates that the sericulture enterprise faces increasing returns to scale. Average technical efficiency is found to be 0.88 with a minimum of 0.3 and a maximum of 0.98 leaving significant scope for improvement in productivity and thus profitability. The results further show that technical efficiency is positively associated with the size of the activity.