IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/14626.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining Productivity Variation among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Tanzania

Author

Listed:
  • Msuya, Elibariki Emmanuel
  • Hisano, Shuji
  • Nariu, Tatsuhiko

Abstract

Using a stochastic frontier production model proposed by Battese and Coelli (1995), the paper estimates the levels of technical efficiency of 233 smallholder maize farmers in Tanzania and provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of inefficiency with the aim of finding way to increase smallholders’ maize production and productivity. Results shows that smallholder productivity is very low and highly variable, ranging form 0.01t/ha to 6.77t/ha, averaging 1.19t/ha. Technical efficiencies of smallholder maize farmers range from 0.011 to 0.910 with a mean of 0.606. Low levels of education, lack of extension services, limited capital, land fragmentation, and unavailability and high input prices are found to have a negative effect on technical efficiency. Smallholder farmers using hand-hoe and farmers with cash incomes outside their farm holdings (petty business) are found to more efficient. However, farmers who use agrochemicals are found to be less efficient. Policy implications drawn from the results include a review of agricultural policy with regard to renewed public support to revamp the agricultural extension system, and interventions towards improving market infrastructure in order to reduce the transaction element in the input and output marketing.

Suggested Citation

  • Msuya, Elibariki Emmanuel & Hisano, Shuji & Nariu, Tatsuhiko, 2008. "Explaining Productivity Variation among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Tanzania," MPRA Paper 14626, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:14626
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14626/1/MPRA_paper_14626.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Battese, George E., 1992. "Frontier production functions and technical efficiency: a survey of empirical applications in agricultural economics," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 7(3-4), pages 185-208, October.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    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. Baha, Michael & Temu, Andrew & Philip, Damas, 2013. "Sources of Technical Efficiency Among Smallholders Maize Farmers in Babati District, Tanzania," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 1(2), July.
    2. Etim, Nsikak-Abasi A. & Udoh, Edet J., 2014. "Identifying Sources Of Efficiency Among Resource Poor Indigenous Vegetable Farmers In Uyo, Nigeria," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 2(1), pages 1-7, January.
    3. 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).
    4. Msangi, Haji Athumani, 2017. "Examining The Inverse Relationship Between Farm Size And Efficiency In Tanzanian Agriculture," Research Theses 276448, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    5. Mwale, Martin & Kamninga, Tony Mwenda & Cassim, Lucius, 2021. "The Effects of the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Program on Household per-Capita Consumption Convergence," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315045, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Mbesa, Baraka, 2017. "A Comparative Analysis Of Business Models Of Two-Wheel Tractors In Babati District, Manyara Region, Tanzania," Research Theses 276450, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    7. John K M & Wayo Seini, 2013. "Technical Efficiency Analysis of Maize Farmers in the Eastern Region of Ghana," Journal of Social and Development Sciences, AMH International, vol. 4(2), pages 84-99.
    8. Mathias, Karangwa, 2010. "The Effect of Land Fragmentation on the Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Maize Farms in Southern Rwanda," Research Theses 243457, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    9. Muzungu Paul, Gatemberezi, 2011. "Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Irish Potato Production in Nyabihu District, Rwanda," Research Theses 243460, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.

    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. Dhehibi, Boubaker & Lachaal, Lassaad & Elloumi, Mohamed & Messaoud, Emna B., 2007. "Measurement and Sources of Technical Inefficiency in the Tunisian Citrus Growing Sector," 103rd Seminar, April 23-25, 2007, Barcelona, Spain 9391, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Wollni, Meike & Brümmer, Bernhard, 2012. "Productive efficiency of specialty and conventional coffee farmers in Costa Rica: Accounting for technological heterogeneity and self-selection," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 67-76.
    3. Tim J. Coelli & George E. Battese, 1996. "Identification Of Factors Which Influence The Technical Inefficiency Of Indian Farmers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 40(2), pages 103-128, August.
    4. Olli-Pekka Kuusela & Maria S. Bowman & Gregory S. Amacher & Richard B. Howarth & Nadine T. Laporte, 2020. "Does infrastructure and resource access matter for technical efficiency? An empirical analysis of fishing and fuelwood collection in Mozambique," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1811-1837, March.
    5. Wasantha Athukorala & Clevo Wilson, 2012. "Groundwater overuse and farm-level technical inefficiency: evidence from Sri Lanka," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 279, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    6. Holger Seebens & Johannes Sauer, 2007. "Bargaining power and efficiency-rural households in Ethiopia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(7), pages 895-918.
    7. Illukpitiya, Prabodh & Yanagida, John F., 2010. "Farming vs forests: Trade-off between agriculture and the extraction of non-timber forest products," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1952-1963, August.
    8. Liu, Xiao-Yan & Pollitt, Michael G. & Xie, Bai-Chen & Liu, Li-Qiu, 2019. "Does environmental heterogeneity affect the productive efficiency of grid utilities in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 333-344.
    9. Voigt, Peter, 2004. "Russlands Weg vom Plan zum Markt: Sektorale Trends und regionale Spezifika. Eine Analyse der Produktivitäts- und Effizienzentwicklungen in der Transformationsphase," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 28, number 93021.
    10. Bekele, Abate & Viljoen, Machiel F. & Ayele, Gezahegn & Ali, Syed, 2009. "Effect of Farm Size on Efficiency of Wheat Production in Moretna-Jirru District in Central Ethiopia," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 64(1), pages 1-11.
    11. Widanage, Rupananda & Chan, Catherine & Tsanga, Yin-Phan & Sipes, Brent & Melakeberhan, Haddish & Sanchez-Perez, Amílcar & Mejía-Coroy, Alfredo, 2022. "Enhancing Technical Efficiency and Economic Welfare: A Case Study of Smallholder Potato Farming in the Western Highlands of Guatemala," Economia agro-alimentare / Food Economy, Italian Society of Agri-food Economics/Società Italiana di Economia Agro-Alimentare (SIEA), vol. 24(1), February.
    12. Uvarovsky, Vladimir & Voigt, Peter, 2000. "Russia'S Agriculture: Eight Years In Transition - Convergence Or Divergence Of Regional Efficiency," IAMO Discussion Papers 14891, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    13. Binam, Joachim Nyemeck & Tonye, Jean & wandji, Njankoua & Nyambi, Gwendoline & Akoa, Mireille, 2004. "Factors affecting the technical efficiency among smallholder farmers in the slash and burn agriculture zone of Cameroon," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 531-545, October.
    14. Antti Saastamoinen, 2015. "Heteroscedasticity Or Production Risk? A Synthetic View," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 459-478, July.
    15. Sedik, David & Trueblood, Michael & Arnade, Carlos, 1999. "Corporate Farm Performance in Russia, 1991-1995: An Efficiency Analysis," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 514-533, September.
    16. Guangming Rao & Bin Su & Jinlian Li & Yong Wang & Yanhua Zhou & Zhaolin Wang, 2019. "Carbon Sequestration Total Factor Productivity Growth and Decomposition: A Case of the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-28, November.
    17. Carlo Altomonte & Marcella Nicolini & Armando Rungi & Laura Ogliari, 2010. "Assessing the Competitive Behaviour of Firms in the Single Market: A Micro-based Approach," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 409, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    18. Asfaw, Solomon & Cattaneo, Andrea & Pallante, Giacomo & Palma, Alessandro, 2017. "Improving the efficiency targeting of Malawi's farm input subsidy programme: Big pain, small gain?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 104-118.
    19. Chenxing Yang & Xiaobo Lou & Takahiro Matsui & Junbo Zhang, 2017. "Evaluating the technical efficiencies of fishing vessels to achieve effective management of overexploited fisheries," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 1149-1162, December.
    20. Rupananda Widanage & Catherine Chan & Yin-Phan Tsang & Brent Sipes & Haddish Melakeberhan & Am?lcar Sanchez-Perez & Alfredo Mej?a-Coroy, 2022. "Enhancing Technical Efficiency and Economic Welfare: A Case Study of Smallholder Potato Farming in the Western Highlands of Guatemala," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 24(1), pages 1-25.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity variation; smallholder farmers; technical efficiency; maize; tanzania;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pra:mprapa:14626. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.