Cereal production practices and technical efficiency among farm households in major “teff” growing mixed farming areas of Ethiopia: A stochastic meta-frontier approach

Abstract

This study examined the effects of research-based recommended cereal production practices on the technical efficiency of farm households based on household-level data generated from questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. The technical efficiency scores were estimated using the stochastic meta-frontier approach because it allows addressing the expected differences in production technologies. Tobit regression framework was applied to identify factors related to farm inefficiency. Results showed mean technical efficiency of 58%, implying that the farm households can improve cereal output by about 36% with the current level of input mix and technologies. The t-test results revealed farm households who adopted high-yielding varieties with research-based recommended production practices were technically more efficient than their counterparts. Our econometric model results also indicated that the use of high-yielding varieties and research-based recommended seed rate affects the technical efficiency of farm households positively and significantly. In addition, we find gender, age, mobile telephone ownership, cooperative membership, access to input market, and crop damage as significant factors affecting the efficiency of farm households. Our findings highlight the importance of addressing technology adoption gaps and gender-based disparities, expanding access to information and modern inputs, strengthening social capital, and adopting climate change adaptation practices to improve the efficiency of farm households.

Keywords:

• Research recommended production practices
• technical efficiency
• meta-frontier
• cereal production
• Ethiopia

Public interest statement

Cereal crops are the core of Ethiopia’s agriculture and important sources of food supply and livelihood for the ever-growing population of the country. Despite its importance, cereal productivity in the country remains very low as compared to its potential yields. Many factors contribute to the low levels of cereal productivity in the country, of which limited access, utilization, and inefficiency in the use of production inputs are among the most limiting factors. To address the existing gap, the Ethiopian government has been implementing cereal crop development and intensification strategy to sustainably improve cereal productivity through increased availability of improved seed, chemical fertilizer, and better management practices. This study, therefore, contributes to the empirical literature and policy debate by examining the effects of the use of modern inputs and research recommended production practices on the technical efficiency of cereal-producing farm households in Ethiopia.

Acknowledgements

The authors of the study would like to extend an appreciation to farm households, development agents, subject matter specialists, researchers and data enumerators for their treasurable time during the interview process, the FGDs, and the KIIs. We also acknowledged Ministry of Agricultural (MoA), Zone and Wereda Level Agricultural Offices, Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC), and Debre Markos Agricultural Research Center (DMARC) for their unresearved support given during the collection of data for the study. Finally, we acknowledged the College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University and Ethiopia Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data used for the study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Notes

1. Research based recommended practices are mainly planting density/seed rate, fertilizer rate, cluster farming and row planting

2. “Wereda” is an administration unit equivalent to district, whilst “Kebele” is the lowest administration region in Ethiopia.

3. Kebeles in the respective study weredas were stratified into high potential and low potential strata in consultation with experts assigned by wereda level agricultural offices.

4. FTCs are farmers’ training centers one of Ethiopia’s strategies to support smallholders in Ethiopia. They were established throughout the country to train the farmers on the use of technological packages. Development agents (Das) who are assigned at each FTC facilitate the farmers’ training centers.

5. A higher proportion of cereal farmland is covered by improved seed in Adea wereda than Enemay wereda with a statistically significant mean difference at less than 1 percent significant level.

6. Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) value for truncated-normal, half normal and exponential distribution is 254.7212, 264.8045 and 273.7771, respectively

7. The critical values for the analysis were obtained from Table 1 of Kodde and Palm (1986)

8. The optimum possible output level that farm households can producing using the existing resources and production technology can be computed as 1- (mean TE/Maximum TE) multiplied by 100.

9. The yield gap due to technical inefficiency variation is derived by first calculating the potential output from TE = Actual output/Potential output, and the Yield gap is computed by subtracting actual yield of farm households from the potential output.

10. The total value of cereal crop is computed based on the volume of output and the price of the crops. The price for the crops were obtained from 2018/19 price data collected by CSA from the study areas.

11. Man-day will be calculated based on regular and common working hours in the study areas, which is equivalent to 8 hours and converted into adult equivalent unit using appropriate conversion factors (See Appendix B) to account for age and gender differences across family members of the farm household.

12. Land quality index is constructed based on multiplying the plots slope and the fertility indicators of the plots, implying a low index value indicates better land quality, while high index value would indicate the lowest quality evaluated at household level (Nisrane et al., 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Notes on contributors

Fisseha Zegeye Birhanu

Fisseha Zegeye is currently a Ph.D. fellow in Addis Ababa University, College of Development Studies. He works for the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). He has more than 13 years of research and teaching experience. His current research interests include development and innovation system, market and commercialization analysis, farming and livelihood system, food security and poverty, climate change, value chain, rural development, agriculture, technology, science, etc.

Abrham Seyoum (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor at Center for Rural Development Studies, Addis Ababa University.

Dawit Alemu (Ph.D.) is a Senior Agricultural Economist and Director for BENEFIT Partnership Program.