Unravelling the variability and causes of smallholder maize yield gaps in Ethiopia

Banchayehu Tessema Assefa,Martin K Van Ittersum,João Vasco Silva,Jordan Chamberlin,Pytrik Reidsma

doi:10.1007/s12571-019-00981-4

Banchayehu Tessema Assefa, Martin K Van Ittersum + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-019-00981-4

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Abstract

Ethiopia has achieved the second highest maize yield in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, farmers’ maize yields are still much lower than on-farm and on-station trial yields, and only ca. 20% of the estimated water-limited potential yield. This article provides a comprehensive national level analysis of the drivers of maize yields in Ethiopia, by decomposing yield gaps into efficiency, resource and technology components, and accounting for a broad set of detailed input and crop management choices. Stochastic frontier analysis was combined with concepts of production ecology to estimate and explain technically efficient yields, the efficiency yield gap and the resource yield gap. The technology yield gap was estimated based on water-limited potential yields from the Global Yield Gap Atlas. The relative magnitudes of the efficiency, resource and technology yield gaps differed across farming systems; they ranged from 15% (1.6 t/ha) to 21% (1.9 t/ha), 12% (1.3 t/ha) to 25% (2.3 t/ha) and 54% (4.8 t/ha) to 73% (7.8 t/ha), respectively. Factors that reduce the efficiency yield gap include: income from non-farm sources, value of productive assets, education and plot distance from home. The resource yield gap can be explained by sub-optimal input use, from a yield perspective. The technology yield gap comprised the largest share of the total yield gap, partly due to limited use of fertilizer and improved seeds. We conclude that targeted but integrated policy design and implementation is required to narrow the overall maize yield gap and improve food security.

Highlights

Population growth and changing consumption patterns have increased global food demand and are threatening food security in the developing world (Dzanku et al 2015; Godfray et al 2010; Tittonell & Giller 2013)
Conducting yield gap analysis at national level with individual farm data and looking into the disaggregation by variety, soil type, year and farming systems helped to get an overview of the yield gaps at different levels, which is essential to search for strategies that narrow the yield gaps
We found that the effect of nitrogen was affected by management practices, mainly crop residue retention and number of weeding

Summary

Introduction

Population growth and changing consumption patterns have increased global food demand and are threatening food security in the developing world (Dzanku et al 2015; Godfray et al 2010; Tittonell & Giller 2013). Maize has become one of the five major cereals ( including wheat, teff, barley and sorghum) in terms of production volume, area coverage and household consumption (Abate et al 2015; CSA & WB 2015). It occupies about 2 million ha, the second largest production area next to teff. It is estimated that about 77% of maize production goes to producer households’ own consumption (CSA & WB 2013; CSA & WB 2015)

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