Technical efficiency of cocoa farming in Gorontalo Province

Cocoa is an export oriented strategic plantation commodity that contributes to foreign exchange in Indonesia. It is mostly planted in Sulawesi Island, therefore, serves as a source of income for farmers. The purpose of this study was to analyze the efficiency of cocoa farming in Pohuwato Regency, Gorontalo. A total of 55 respondents were selected by simple random sampling. Furthermore, the Cobb Douglas stochastic frontier production function was used to analyze technical production efficiency and factors affecting it. Cocoa farming can be categorized as profitable, as the farmer reached average profit IDR 6,312,679/ha/year. However, in general cocoa farmers have not yet technically efficient because their technical efficiency value was only 0.52. The cocoa production efficiency was positively and significantly affected by land area, fertilizer, pesticides and labor. The increase in farmer age causes a positive and significant rise in inefficiency. Conversely, education and the number of family members have a negative effect, although not significant. Therefore, it requires to increase cocoa farming efficiency by increasing farmers’ access to production inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, and improving the management of cocoa cultivation.