Abstract
The economy of Ethiopia is based on agriculture. Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most important food crops produced by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia and accounted for 28% of total grain production during the 2011/12 Meher season. However, low production and productivity characterizes Ethiopian maize production . The low levels of maize productivity may be the result of technical inefficiencies. Therefore the objective of this review is to review level of technical efficiency and assess the source of technical efficiency in Ethiopia. The review suggested the presence of considerable levels of technical inefficiency in maize productivity. From the empirical estimation, important variables affecting the technical efficiency were found Agro-ecology, oxen holding, farm size and use of high yielding maize varieties, sex, age, membership to cooperatives, training, distance to extension agents and main market, credit, family size, livestock and off-farm income. The most important factor to promote production efficiency is probably access to credit. DOI : 10.7176/FSQM/84-03
Highlights
The economy of Ethiopia is based on agriculture, which accounts for 46.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment (FAO,2014).Ethiopian agriculture is predominantly rain fed, smallholder farming on land areas averaging less than two hectares (MoARD, 2010).Low productivity is attributed to limited access to modern inputs such as chemical fertilizer, improved seeds, and limited access for finance, poor access to irrigation systems and agricultural markets, poor land management practices that resulted in severe land degradation Despite such drawbacks, the agricultural sector performed remarkably since 1996/97 and registered a growth rate of about 10% per an-num until 2003/04 (MOARD, 2010)
Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most important food crops produced by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia and accounted for 28% of total grain production during the 2011/12 Meher season2 (CSA, 2012)
The main objective dealt through this review is to assess the level of technical efficiency of maize production and identify sources of technical efficiency in maize production in Ethioipia in Ethiopia.The from empirical empirical funding conclusion can be drawn is that there is a different level of technical inefficiency among the maize farmers that contributed to lowered productivity and important variables affecting the technical efficiency were found to be sex, age, membership to cooperatives, training, distance to extension agents and main market, credit, family size, livestock and off-farm income
Summary
If a given firm uses quantities of inputs, defined by the point P, to produce a unit of output, the technical inefficiency of that firm could be represented by the distance QP, which is the amount by which all inputs could be proportionally reduced without a reduction in output. This is usually expressed in percentage terms of the ratio which represents the percentage by which all inputs need to be reduced to achieve technically efficient production. One way of reducing the cost of production in a farm is to increase farm output by increasing technical efficiency (Fried et al, 2008)
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