scholarly journals Technical Efficiency of Traditional Village Chicken Production in Africa: Entry Points for Sustainable Transformation and Improved Livelihood

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8539
Author(s):  
Mulugeta Y. Birhanu ◽  
Tesfahun Alemayehu ◽  
Jasmine E. Bruno ◽  
Fasil Getachew Kebede ◽  
Emmanuel Babafunso Sonaiya ◽  
...  

Increasing poultry product consumption trends have attracted researchers and development practitioners to look for interventions that transform the low-input low-output-based village chicken production to a high yielding production system. However, due to the intricate nature of the production system, there is a dearth of evidence that helps design comprehensive interventions at the smallholder level. Using national-level representative data collected from 3555 village chicken producers in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, this study examines the technical efficiency of village chicken production and investigates the main factors that explain the level of inefficiency. We applied a stochastic frontier analysis to simultaneously quantify the level of technical efficiency and identify factors associated with heterogeneity in inefficiency. We found that the level of technical efficiency is extremely low in the three countries, suggesting enormous opportunities to enhance productivity using available resources. The heterogeneity in technical efficiency is strongly associated with producers’ experience in breed improvements and flock management, limited technical knowledge and skills, limited access to institutions and markets, smaller flock size, gender disparities, and household livelihood orientation. We argue the need to adopt an integrated approach to enhance village producers’ productivity and transform the traditional subsistence-based production system into a commercially oriented semi-intensive production system.

Author(s):  
Sokvibol Kea ◽  
Hua Li ◽  
Linvolak Pich

Rice is the most important food crop in Cambodia and its production is the most organized food production system in the country. The main objective of this study is to measure technical efficiency (TE) of Cambodian rice production and also trying to identify core influencing factors of rice TE at both national and household level, for explaining the possibilities of increasing productivity and profitability of rice, by using translog production function through Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model. Four-years dataset (2012-2015) generated from the government documents was utilized for the national analysis, while at household-level, the primary three-years data (2013-2015) collected from 301 rice farmers in three selected districts of Battambang province by structured questionnaires was applied. The results indicate that level of rice output varied according to the different level of capital investment in agricultural machineries, total actual harvested area, and technically fertilizers application within provinces, while level of household rice output varied according to the differences in efficiency of production processes, techniques, total annual harvested land, and technically application of fertilizers and pesticides of farmers. The overall mean TE was estimated at 78.4% (national-level) and 34% (household-level), indicates that rice output has the potential of being increased further by 21.6% (national production) and 66% (household) at the same level of inputs and technology if farmers had been technically efficient. The TE also recorded -7% decreasing rate at the national-level and -14.3% at household-level due to highly affected of natural disasters and various environmental and social factors during the study periods.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Mirpouya Mirmozaffari ◽  
Reza Yazdani ◽  
Elham Shadkam ◽  
Seyed Mohammad Khalili ◽  
Leyla Sadat Tavassoli ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on hospitals and healthcare systems around the world. The cost of business disruption combined with lingering COVID-19 costs has placed many public hospitals on a course to insolvency. To quickly return to financial stability, hospitals should implement efficiency measure. An average technical efficiency (ATE) model made up of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) for assessing efficiency in public hospitals during and after the COVID-19 pandemic is offered. The DEA method is a non-parametric method that requires no information other than the input and output quantities. SFA is a parametric method that considers stochastic noise in data and allows statistical testing of hypotheses about production structure and degree of inefficiency. The rationale for using these two competing approaches is to balance each method’s strengths, weaknesses and introduce a novel integrated approach. To show the applicability and efficacy of the proposed hybrid VRS-CRS-SFA (VCS) model, a case study is presented.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong ◽  
Ernest L. Molua

Agriculture is the mainstay of Cameroon’s economy as it serves the purposes of food, livelihood and employment. Nevertheless, the country’s agriculture is plagued by low productivity and inefficiency in production. One of the main reasons for low productivity is the inability of farmers to fully exploit available technologies and production techniques. An important research question that comes to mind is, what are the major factors that hinder the technical efficiency of smallholder farmers? This study thus aimed to determine the level of technical efficiency in the production of tomato in smallholder farms, relying on primary data collected using a structured survey instrument administered to 80 tomato farmers in the Buea municipality of Cameroon. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a stochastic frontier analysis method in the Cobb-Douglas production function. The STATA.14 software was used to obtain both stochastic frontier estimates and the determinants of technical efficiency. The results indicate that farmers are not fully technically efficient with a mean technical efficiency score of 0.68 with one farmer operating on the frontier. The study also revealed that most of the farmers irrespective of the size of the holdings have shown technical inefficiency problems. The older farmers were observed with the best measures of technical efficiency. Education, age and the adoption and practice of agronomic techniques had a positive and significant influence on technical efficiency while the nearest distance to the extension agent had a rather negative influence on technical efficiency. The input-output relationship showed that the area of tomato cultivation and the quantity of improved seed used were positive and significantly related to output at the 5% level of probability. As a result, it is recommended that farmers should increase their farm size, use of improved seeds and the adoption and practice of novel techniques in production. More emphasis should be placed on extension agents as they have a significant role to play in terms of improving and augmenting farmers’ education and information base through on farm demonstrations and result oriented workshops as all this will ensure increased production and productivity thereby increasing technical efficiency and achieving food self-sufficiency.


Author(s):  
Mukole Kongolo

This study measured technical efficiency and its determinants in maize production by small-scale producers in Mwanza region, using a stochastic frontier production function approach. A randomly selected sample of participants in the two districts was used. The Maximum Likelihood estimation procedure was followed to obtain the determinants of technical efficiency and technical efficiency levels of small-scale maize producers. The minimum and maximum values of technical efficiency were between 20% and 91%, indicating that the least practices of specific producer operates at a minimum level of 20%, while the best practice producers  operate  at 91% technical efficiency  level respectively. The summary results of the mean technical efficiency was 63%. The main determinants of technical efficiency were labour, farm size, producer’s experience, producer’s age, family size which were all positive and statistically significant. The findings suggest that the average efficiency of small-scale maize producers could be improved by 37% through better use of existing resources and technology. These findings highlight the need for action by government to assist small-scale maize producers improve efficiency.


Author(s):  
Anita Rosli ◽  
Alias Radam ◽  
Khalid Abdul Rahim ◽  
Amin Mahir Abdullah

This study aimed to estimate the technical efficiency among pepper (Piper nigrum. L) farmers in Sarawak, Malaysia, using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). SFA involves a one-step process that can estimate technical inefficacy factors simultaneously with the production frontier. 678 pepper farmers were involved in this study, and the data were collected from 2012 to 2013. The mean score for technical efficiency was 0.518, indicating that pepper farmers were not efficient. However, the inefficiency model showed that education level, membership in farmers’ association, full-time as a pepper farmer, attending courses and visiting sample farms were factors that significantly improved inefficiency. The major problem of pepper farming in Sarawak is poor agricultural practices where farmers do not fully utilize the available agricultural inputs to produce maximum output. Based on the findings, farmers must improve their knowledge and skills in pepper farming through agronomic education.


Author(s):  
Tomas Baležentis ◽  
Tianxiang Li ◽  
Alvydas Baležentis

This study aims at analysing the trends in efficiency of Lithuanian dairy farms and thus identifying the prospective development paths. The semiparametric approach based on nonparametric regression and Stochastic Frontier Analysis is applied for the analysis. The research relies on Farm Accountancy Data Network and covers family farms. The period of 2004–2011 is considered. In order to identify the underlying trends in dairy farming, we focus on such features as technical efficiency, partial elasticities, and elasticity of scale. The semiparametric approach yielded rather high efficiencies. Specifically, the average technical efficiency of 89% was observed. A decline in technical efficiency during 2004–2011 is present for both point estimates and associated bounds of the confidence interval. Analysis of the elasticity of scale implies that most of the farms could still increase their scale of operation. The obtained results were confirmed by a parametric random coefficients model.


Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar

This study employs a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and technical inefficiency effects model to predict the technical efficiency of 3,168 Indian manufacturing and exporting SMEs, analyze their returns to scale and key factors impacting on their technical efficiency. Indian manufacturing and exporting SMEs extensively rely on labor rather than capital to increase their output, including almost all exporting SME groups, except those exporting to North & South America. The production of Indian manufacturing SMEs exporting to Oceania, however, has increasing returns to scale (1.1965). The inefficiency effects model reveals that firm size, firm age, foreign ownership, location and government assistance are firm-specific factors that significantly affect the technical inefficiency of production. Finally, evidence-based policies are also provided to facilitate improvement in the technical efficiency performance of Indian manufacturing and exporting SMEs.


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