TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF THE HATCHERY OPERATORS IN FISH SEED PRODUCTION FARMS IN BANGLADESH

This siudti- is concerned with the estimation of technical efficiency of the hatchery operators producing fish seed Using 56 samples comprising 15 from Jessore, 10 from Chandpur, 16 from Bogra, and 15 from Siymensingh districts, the study has used frontier 4.1 Package to estimate the technical efficiency of the hatchery operators. A Cobb-Douglas type production function with nine quantitative variables namely. pond area, human labour, feed, fertilizer, number of brood fish, number of times brood used in a year, fuel electricity and hormone dose given to female brood and a dummy for stochastic frontier and a linear technical inefficiency function with 4 variables: Age, Education, Experience and Training received by the hatchery operator were estimated. Several hypotheses tests were performed using Log-likelihood Ratio Test. The mean technical efficiency of the hatchery operators was 60 percent. Technical efficiency were not found to be skewed towards higher or lower scores. rather concentrated in the 30'h, 40`", 60"' and 90°i percentiles. Hypothesis of existence of inefficiency effect was rejected establishing that significant inefficiency exists. More than one third of the seed production potential remains unutilized. Utilizing the unexploited production potential of the fish seed producers rather than establishing new farms and hatcheries appears to be the pertinent policy. Training of the farm hatchery operators can help achieve the unexploited potential.