IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ajn/agdeve/2018p1-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technical Efficiency of Sorghum Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Konso District, Southern Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Kusse Haile

    (Lecturer, Mizan-Tepi University, Ethiopia)

  • Jema Haji

    (Associate Professor, Haramaya University, Ethiopia)

  • Bosena Tegegne

    (Associate Professor, Haramaya University, Ethiopia)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the technical efficiency of sorghum production by smallholder farmers in Konso district, Southern Ethiopia using cross sectional data collected from a sample of 124 sorghum producing households. Individual levels of technical efficiency scores were estimated using the Cobb-Douglas functional form, which was specified to estimate the stochastic production frontier. The estimated stochastic production frontier model indicated that input variables such as land size, fertilizer (Urea and DAP), labour, oxen power and chemicals (herbicides or pesticides) found to be important factors in increasing the level of sorghum output in the study area. The result further revealed significant differences in technical efficiency among sorghum producers in the study area. The discrepancy ratio, which measures the relative deviation of output from the frontier level due to inefficiency, was about 90%. The estimated mean of technical efficiency of the sample households was about 69%, which shows existence of a possibility to increase the level of sorghum output by about 31% by efficient use of the existing resources. Among the household specific socio-economic and institutional factors hypothesized to affect the level of technical inefficiency, age, education level, family size, off/non-farm activities, extension contact, livestock holding, plots distance and soil fertility were found to be significant in determining the level of technical inefficiency of sorghum production in the study area. Negative coefficients of education level, family size, off/non-farm activities, extension contact and soil fertility indicates that improvement in these factors results in a significant decrease in the level of technical inefficiency. Akin, positive coefficients of age, livestock holding and plots distance were found to increase households’ technical inefficiency. Hence, emphasis should be given to improve the efficiency level of those less efficient households by adopting the practices of relatively efficient households in the study area. Beside this, policies and strategies of the government should be directed towards the above mentioned determinants.

Suggested Citation

  • Kusse Haile & Jema Haji & Bosena Tegegne, 2018. "Technical Efficiency of Sorghum Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Konso District, Southern Ethiopia," Agricultural Development, Sophia, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:ajn:agdeve:2018:p:1-15
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.20448/journal.523.2018.31.1.15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ecsenet.com/index.php/2576-6740/article/view/14
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://ecsenet.com/index.php/2576-6740/article/view/14
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.20448/journal.523.2018.31.1.15?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haile, Kusse & Haji, Jema & Tegegne, Bosena, 2018. "Technical Efficiency of Sorghum Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Konso District, Southern Ethiopia," Agricultural Development, Asian Online Journal Publishing Group, vol. 3(1), November.
    2. Battese, George E. & Corra, Greg S., 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 1-11, December.
    3. George E. Battese & Greg S. Corra, 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 169-179, December.
    4. Abdulai, Awudu & Eberlin, Richard, 2001. "Technical efficiency during economic reform in Nicaragua: evidence from farm household survey data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 113-125, June.
    5. Najma Sharif & Atul Dar, 1996. "An empirical study of the patterns and sources of technical inefficiency in traditional and HYV rice cultivation in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 612-629.
    6. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    7. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    8. Kusse Haile & Benyam Tadesse* & Jema Haji & Bosena Tegegne, 2018. "Technical Efficiency of Sorghum Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Konso District, Southern Ethiopia," Journal of Agriculture and Crops, Academic Research Publishing Group, vol. 4(5), pages 50-62, 05-2018.
    9. Ahmed, Mohamed M. & Gebremedhin, Berhanu & Benin, Samuel & Ehui, Simeon, 2002. "Measurement and sources of technical efficiency of land tenure contracts in Ethiopia," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 507-527, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Birara Endalew & Adugnaw Anteneh & Kassahun Tasie, 2022. "Technical Efficiency of Teff Production Among Smallholder Farmers: Beta Regression Approach," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(2), pages 1076-1096, April.
    2. Abebe Birara Dessie & Tadie Mirie Abate & Betelhem Tsedalu Adane & Tiru Tesfa & Shegaw Getu, 2020. "Estimation of technical efficiency of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) farming in northwest Ethiopia: a stochastic frontier approach," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kusse Haile & Benyam Tadesse* & Jema Haji & Bosena Tegegne, 2018. "Technical Efficiency of Sorghum Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Konso District, Southern Ethiopia," Journal of Agriculture and Crops, Academic Research Publishing Group, vol. 4(5), pages 50-62, 05-2018.
    2. Gauri Khanna, 2006. "Technical Efficiency in Production and Resource Use in Sugar Cane: A Stochastic Frontier Production Function Analysis," IHEID Working Papers 15-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    3. Aniah Dominic Avea & Jing Zhu & Xu Tian & Tomas Baležentis & Tianxiang Li & Michael Rickaille & William Funsani, 2016. "Do NGOs and Development Agencies Contribute to Sustainability of Smallholder Soybean Farmers in Northern Ghana—A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-17, May.
    4. Richard T. Yao & Gerald E. Shively, 2007. "Technical Change and Productive Efficiency: Irrigated Rice in the Philippines," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 155-168, June.
    5. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che & R. Quentin Grafton, 2004. "Technical efficiency effects of input controls: evidence from Australia's banana prawn fishery," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15), pages 1631-1641.
    6. Coelli, Tim J., 1995. "Recent Developments In Frontier Modelling And Efficiency Measurement," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 39(3), pages 1-27, December.
    7. Abiodun Adegboye & Olawale Daniel Akinyele, 2022. "Assessing the determinants of government spending efficiency in Africa," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Williams, Jonathan, 2004. "Determining management behaviour in European banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(10), pages 2427-2460, October.
    9. Roy, Manish & Mazumder, Ritwik, 2016. "Technical Efficiency of Fish Catch in Traditional Fishing: A Study in Southern Assam," Journal of Regional Development and Planning, Rajarshi Majumder, vol. 5(1), pages 55-68.
    10. Edward Ebo ONUMAH & Bernhard BRÜMMER & Gabriele HÖRSTGEN-SCHWARK, 2010. "Productivity of the hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency in Ghana's fish farms," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 79-88.
    11. repec:use:tkiwps:3232 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Tom Kompas, 2001. "Catch, Efficiency and Management: A Stochastic Production Frontier Analysis of the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec01-8, International and Development Economics.
    13. Roberto Furesi & Fabio Madau & Pietro Pulina, 2013. "Technical efficiency in the sheep dairy industry: an application on the Sardinian (Italy) sector," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-11, December.
    14. Srinivasulu Rajendran, 2014. "Technical Efficiency of Fruit and Vegetable Producers in Tamil Nadu, India: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 11(1), pages 77-93, June.
    15. Emvalomatis, Grigorios & Oude Lansink, Alfons G.J.M. & Stefanou, Spiro E., 2008. "An Examination of the Relationship Between Subsidies on Production and Technical Efficiency in Agriculture: The Case of Cotton Producers in Greece," 107th Seminar, January 30-February 1, 2008, Sevilla, Spain 6673, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Lazović-Pita Lejla & Šćeta Lamija, 2021. "A Stochastic Frontier Approach to Measuring Inefficiency of Local Communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 18-29, June.
    17. Francisca Pacheco & Rafael Sánchez & Mauricio G. Villena, 2021. "Estimating local government efficiency using a panel data parametric approach: the case of Chilean municipalities," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 292-314, January.
    18. Abdul Wadud, 2013. "Impact of Microcredit on Agricultural Farm Performance and Food Security in Bangladesh," Working Papers 14, Institute of Microfinance (InM).
    19. Rungsuriyawiboon, Supawat & Xiaobing, Wang, 2007. "Recent Evidence On Agricultural Efficiency And Productivity In China: A Metafrontier Approach," IAMO Discussion Papers 90863, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    20. Asekenye, Cresensia & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Mukherjee, Deep & Okoko, Nasambu & Kalule Okello, David & Kidula, Nelson & Deom, Mike & Puppala, Naveen, 2013. "Productivity Gaps Among Smallholder Groundnut Farmers: A Comparative Analysis for Uganda and Kenya," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 160673, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    21. Madau, Fabio A., 2011. "Parametric Estimation of Technical and Scale Efficiencies in Italian Citrus Farming," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 12(1).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ajn:agdeve:2018:p:1-15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sophia (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://ecsenet.com/index.php/2576-6740 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.