Do organic fertilizer impact on yield and efficiency of rice farms? Empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Organic fertilizer is one of the critical elements of organic and sustainable agricultural development. This study analyzes the economic impact of organic fertilizer on rice farms' yield and technical efficiency (TE) in Bangladesh. The Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) approach has been employed by using a sample of 2652 rice plots covering seven broad agro-ecological zones of Bangladesh. It also addresses self-selection into the organic fertilizer choice using propensity score matching (PSM) that corrects observed selection bias that potentially influences both decisions to choose and technical efficiency. After PSM, organic fertilizer users produce 16.67% higher yield by using 12.1%, 9.40%, and 42.1% less labor, other inputs, and farm capital for rice production. The organic fertilizer users are significantly 3.79% more efficient…