Volume 29, Issue 2, March 2017, Pages 110–118
Abdallah Abdul-Hanan1 and Awal Abdul-Rahaman2
1 Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
2 Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance, Faculty of Agribusiness and Communication Sciences, University for Development Studies, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2017 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The purpose of this study is to examine the technical efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers from the parametric perspective. In this study, the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) assumed the Cobb-Douglas functional form and technical efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers is then estimated using first phase data from the database of sub-Saharan Africa’s intensification of food crops agriculture (Afrint I). Using household characteristics, human capital, farmer’s resource situation, social capital and experience variables, the study found that farmers are producing below the frontier with average technical efficiency of 53 percent. Policy variables such as credit access; education and extension access and farm size played a stronger role in technical efficiency levels.
Author Keywords: Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Approach, Maize farmers, Ghana.
Abdallah Abdul-Hanan1 and Awal Abdul-Rahaman2
1 Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
2 Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance, Faculty of Agribusiness and Communication Sciences, University for Development Studies, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2017 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the technical efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers from the parametric perspective. In this study, the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) assumed the Cobb-Douglas functional form and technical efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers is then estimated using first phase data from the database of sub-Saharan Africa’s intensification of food crops agriculture (Afrint I). Using household characteristics, human capital, farmer’s resource situation, social capital and experience variables, the study found that farmers are producing below the frontier with average technical efficiency of 53 percent. Policy variables such as credit access; education and extension access and farm size played a stronger role in technical efficiency levels.
Author Keywords: Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Approach, Maize farmers, Ghana.
How to Cite this Article
Abdallah Abdul-Hanan and Awal Abdul-Rahaman, “Technical Efficiency of Maize Farmers in Ghana: A Stochastic Frontier Approach,” International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 110–118, March 2017.
