Regional Level Total Factor Productivity Growth in Ghana Agriculture

Abstract

This paper examines the trends in major principal crop productivity growth in 10 regions in Ghana. A panel dataset is constructed for the period 2000-2009 from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana database. A nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) programming method is used to compute Malmquist productivity indices. These are decomposed into two component measures: efficiency change and technical change. The study examines the trends in regional level agricultural productivity growth in Ghana from 2000-2009 and for the sub-periods 2000-04 and 2005-09. The paper also indicates trends between the total factor productivity and partial productivity indices: labor productivity and land productivity. We find that the total productivity growth rate is higher in Northern region of Ghana followed by Eastern and Upper West regions. The overall contribution of technical change is greater than that of efficiency change to overall productivity changes in all the regions except Central, Eastern regions.

Keywords: Total factor productivity, Malmquist Index, Regional-wise, Ghana, Agricultural Production