Analysis of technical efficiency of irrigated tomato production in North Gondar Zone of Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is a country with a total population of more than 110 million, of which about 80% of the total population is engaged in subsistence farming in rural areas. Although the agricultural sector plays a great role in the Ethiopian economy, it is characterized by low productivity due to technological and socioeconomic factors. Improving smallholder irrigated tomato production, and productivity would contribute to enhancing food security and alleviating poverty. Therefore, this study was investigated to fill this gap to analyze the technical efficiency of irrigated tomato production and its determinant factors in North Gondar Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. Primary data were collected from 160 farmers selected using a multistage sampling procedure and analyzed using descriptive statistics, a parametric stochastic frontier production function model. The stochastic frontier and Cobb–Douglas functional form with a one-step approach were employed to analyze efficiency and factors affecting efficiency in irrigated tomato production. The estimated gamma parameters indicated that 0.69% of the total variation in tomato output was due to technical inefficiency. The means technical efficiency was found 60%, and about 6480.19 kg of tomato output per hectare was lost due to inefficiency factors implying there is a room for improvement in technical efficiency by 40% with the present technology. The Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) result revealed that plot size at 1% and UREA at 10% probability level significantly influenced tomato production. The socio-economic variables that exercised an important role for variations in technical efficiency positively were the level of education, TLU, fair water distribution service and water in the morning, and in contrast watering frequency, marketing training, and credit were found to increase inefficiency significantly among farm households. To get better farmers' efficiency in the production of irrigated tomatoes continuous marketing training should be established and strengthening the available farmers training center (FTC) to improve farm productivity. The government and any concerned bodies should be built irrigation canals and other alternatives to reduce watering frequency. There should be a timely and sufficient supply of UREA to improve farmers’ efficiency in the production of tomatoes.