Efficiency of resettled farmers in Mashonaland Central Province of Zimbabwe in crop production: A DEA approach

Abstract

The main aim of the paper is to determine the technical, allocative and economic efficiency of the resettled farmers in Zimbabwe in the production of field crops. Data were collected from 245 land reform beneficiaries using a structured questionnaire during the 2010/2011 agricultural production season. To empirically calculate efficiency, Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) was adopted mainly because of its capability of handling multiple inputs and outputs. Results obtained from DEA showed that commercial land reform beneficiaries (A2 farmers) had a higher average technical efficiency score of 0.839 than subsistence (small land size) land reform beneficiaries (A1 and the old resettled farmers) who had average technical efficiency scores of 61.7 and 65.9%, respectively. Small land holders were also on average less cost-efficient than large land holders (A2). The decomposition of cost-efficiency into technical and allocative efficiency suggests that cost inefficiency for A2 farmers was mostly due to the use of ‘wrong’ inputs at the prevailing input prices, rather than waste of inputs. Small land holders’ cost inefficiency was mostly due to both the use of ‘wrong’ inputs at the prevailing input prices and waste of inputs. Efficiency in field crop production in Zimbabwe could be improved through improving the ability of the resettled farmers to choose optimum input levels for given factor prices and saving inputs through correct usage. Key words: Allocative efficiency, cost efficiency, data envelop analysis (DEA), land reform, technical efficiency.