Technical Efficiency of Maize Production in the Centre Region of Cameroon: A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Abstract

Increasing agricultural productivity and efficiency in production continues to be the cornerstone of most farming systems. Most policy makers rely on such studies as it offers the pathway to agricultural growth and economic development. This research is aimed to evaluate the technical efficiency of maize farmers in the Lekie division of the Centre region of Cameroon. We employ the two staged DEA technique where we computed the technical efficiency (TE) of the various farms in the first stage based on both the constant returns to scale and the variable returns to scale. In the second stage, we used the censored dependent Tobit model to capture the determinants of technical efficiency. Mean TE indices of 0.67 and 0.95 are gotten for farmers at the constant returns to scale and variable returns to scale respectively. This indicates that there still exist potentials to increase the TE of farms in the research area. The study also recorded a scale efficiency of 0.70. Regressing the various efficiency indices on household and farm characteristics, we found educational level, counselling services, participation in a peasant organization, acreage cultivated and age of household head to significantly increase TE. Marital status and credits rather had an inverse effect on TE. From the findings, policy implication should inclusively rest on building the educational capacity of the farmers be it through on-farm demonstrations, seminars, trainings or grouping of the farmers into clubs and associations.

Keywords: Efficiency, Productivity, data envelopment analysis, maize, Cameroon.