Sources of Technical Efficiency Among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Babati District,Tanzania

Abstract

Decrease in maize yield per hectare in Tanzania for the past three years was noted.  This decline in yield has been attributed to many factors. Using a cross sectional data obtained through a multistage sampling technique the production efficiency and its determinants among maize crop farmers in the district were examined. A purposive sampling technique was used to select four wards under maize production with a simple random sampling used to select six villages out of the four wards. Stratified sampling was to select 122 farmers who cultivated maize in the study area. Stochastic frontier model determined the sources of inefficiency among farmers in the study area. The mean technical efficiency was found to be 62.3% suggesting that an estimated 37.7% of the inefficiency in maize production in study area results from combination of both technical and allocative inefficiency. The study concludes that, in order to increase efficiency farm size, formal education, number of plots owned by a farmer, frequency of contacts with extension officers, use of insect sides, and the use of hand hoes or otherwise are important factors.

Keywords: Smallholders, Maize, Production efficiency, stochastic frontier, Tanzania.