A STOCHASTIC FRONTIER APPROACH FOR MEASURING TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF SMALL-SCALE IMPROVED SALT PRODUCTION IN GUINEA

Salt production is a major driving force behind the loss of mangrove in Guinea. As the traditional salt production causes increasing deforestation, the intensive exploitation of mangrove resources has now reached a critical threshold. Therefore, improved techniques using sunlight as the source of energy has been introduced as an alternative to the traditional salt production techniques which consumes a significant amount of mangrove wood. Therefore, it’s of interest to examine the efficiency of the new salt production technique, in this an attempt is made to determine the technical efficiency of salt producers adopting the improved techniques by using the stochastic frontier analysis method. The study used primary data collected through a survey. A sample of 100 salt producers was interviewed during March-April 2013. However, this study considers only 65 producers using the improved salt production techniques along the Guinean coast in Koba, particularly in Balessourou district. The results revealed that labor cost and dimension of the basins contribute to enhance the performance of salt production in terms of revenue earned. Inefficiency model indicated that membership in salt producer organizations, producers’ participation in activities organized by local and/or international institutions; family size and land rent significantly influenced technical inefficiency. Results also highlighted the fact that even the best producers were inefficient. The mean level of their technical efficiencies was estimated at 27%, while the efficiency ranged from 0.0 to 92%. In addition, the estimation of the loss due to the inefficiency occurring seasonally was significant and valued at 601,024 Guinean francs per basin. In order to improve the efficiency of salt production, this study advocates some strategies such as coating basins for minimizing the loss of salt during extraction, encouraging producers’ participation in activities organized by the government and its partners and strengthening producers’ organizations to enhance producer participation in salt production.