Review on Economic Efficiency of Maize Production in Ethiopia

Teka Etefa Firisa

doi:10.7176/fsqm/84-04

Abstract

Despite the fact that, agriculture remains to be the most significant sector of the Ethiopian economy, its performance has been disappointing and food production has been lagging behind population growth. Although increasing population pressure and low levels of agricultural productivity have aggravated the food insecurity situation by widening the gap between the demand for and supply of food in the country. This gap can be decreased by improving productivity either through the introduction of modern technologies or improving the efficiency of crop production. However, as the possibility to enhance production by bringing more resources into use became more and more limited, the efficiency with which the farmers use available resources has received the greatest attention. Since maize is a significant contributor to the Ethiopian economy, escalating productivity and efficiency of maize production could be taken as an important step in achieving food security. This review was aimed at assessing the levels of technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of smallholder maize producers; and to identify factors affecting the efficiency of smallholder farmers in maize production in Ethiopia. In these review factors like education, land fragmentation, livestock ownership, a frequency of extension contact, soil fertility, off/non-farm activities, sex, land owned, credit utilization and perception on agricultural policy are identified as the key determinants of the economic efficiency of maize production in Ethiopia. The frequency distribution of technical, allocative and economic efficiency levels was not fairly distributed. The maize farms were being operated in a different level of efficiency. This implies that a large number of maize farmers in Ethiopia faced inefficiency problems. Keywords: Maize, Economic efficiency, Determinants, Ethiopia DOI : 10.7176/FSQM/84-04

Highlights

1.1 Background of the Review Maize (Zea mays L.) is the most widely distributed cereal crop in the world
2.4 Determinants of Economic efficiency of Maize Production The focus of this review is to provide an empirical evidence of the determinants of productivity variability or inefficiency gaps among smallholder maize farmers in Ethiopia
Agricultural sector of Ethiopia is characterized by its poor performance, while the population of the country, which to a large extent depends on agriculture, is growing at a faster rate

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Review Maize (Zea mays L.) is the most widely distributed cereal crop in the world. In countries like Ethiopia, it is advisable to benefit from increased productivity through improving efficiency in the use of input/resource available. Assessing the factors responsible for low production and productivity of smallholder cereal crop producers in general and maize production, in particular, has dominant importance in Ethiopia. The first type of efficiency is an allocative efficiency (AE), which refers to the capacity of the firm to use a set of inputs in optimal proportion with the given price and level of technology or it could be alternatively interpreted as the ability of a firm to produce a given level www.iiste.org of output using cost minimizing input ratios. In developing countries like Ethiopia, the best option for productivity improvement is increasing the efficiency of producers

Overview of Cobb- Douglas Production function and efficiency

Findings

Conclusions and Recommendations