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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Factors Affecting Farm-Specific Production Efficiency in the Savanna Zones of West Africa
Authors:Okike, I.ISNI
Jabbar, M.A.
Manyong, V.M.
Smith, J.W.
Ehui, S.K.
Year:2004
Periodical:Journal of African Economies
Volume:13
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:134-165
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:agricultural productivity
agropastoralism
agricultural intensification
efficiency
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
External link:https://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/1/134.full.pdf
Abstract:Agricultural intensification involving greater crop-livestock interactions and integration is emerging as the most promising strategy for improving agricultural production and productivity in much of sub-Sahara Africa. In West Africa, where this process is at various stages of evolution, 559 farm households from two agroecological zones in Nigeria - the Sudan Savanna (SS) and Northern Guinea Savanna (NGS) zones - were studied to examine the factors affecting production efficiency. The farms in each zone were divided into four socioeconomic domains using a combination of population density and market access as criteria. Estimation of stochastic frontier production function indicated the need to include ecological and socioeconomic variables in both the production function and the accompanying inefficiency equation, failing which such models may suffer from omitted variables bias. The results show that inefficiency effects of a stochastic nature exist among the sample farms and average efficiency is 76 percent: 68 percent in the SS and 86 percent in the NGS zones. Further, increased resource use associated with agricultural intensification is not always accompanied by an increase in production efficiency; and while agricultural intensification based on high external input strategies yields higher marginal returns in the NGS, a similar strategy is not critical to success in the SS given current use levels and biophysical endowments of the zone. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]
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