Technical Efficiency of Maize Production: The Case of Smallholder Farmers in Damot Sore District, Southern Ethiopia

An increase of agricultural production is very important to achieve the goal of food security. An efficient use of the existing resources by farm households improves their productivity and thereby increases their output. Maize is one of the dominant crops and its productivity is low in the study area. This means that it is possible to obtain additional output from existing inputs used, if resource are properly used and efficiently allocated. The aim of this study was to investigate technical efficiency of maize farmers and identify factors affecting technical inefficiency of maize farmers in Damot Sore district of southern Ethiopia. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire which was administered to 124 randomly selected sample maize producers in the district. The estimated results of the cobb-Douglas frontier model with inefficiency variables showed that the mean technical efficiency of maize farmers in the production of maize is 68%. This implies that maize producers can reduce current level of input application by 32% and produce same output given the existing technological level. The discrepancy ratio gamma ( ), which measures the relative deviation of output from the frontier level due to inefficiency was about 98%. This implies that about 98% of the variation in maize production among sample farmers was attributed to technical inefficiency effect. The maximum likelihood parameter estimates showed that input variables such as land, amount of fertilizer; labor and quantity of seed determine maize output in the study area. The estimated stochastic production frontier model together with the inefficiency parameters revealed that age, extension contact, slope, off/non-farm activities and fertility of land were found to be significant sources of technical inefficiency level in the study area. Therefore, policies and strategies by government and development practitioners may act on these variables.