RESEARCH PAPER
TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF TAFF PRODUCTION
IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA: A STOCHASTIC FRONTIER APPROACH
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Submission date: 2024-07-14
Final review date: 2024-09-30
Acceptance date: 2025-01-09
Publication date: 2025-09-30
Zagadnienia Ekonomiki Rolnej / Problems of Agricultural Economics 2025;384(3):108-134
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ABSTRACT
Aim:
Tigray’s agriculture sector is greatly faced with challenges, so much so that productivity levels
are beneath the national level. This is largely due to primitive farming practices and high input costs.
The persistent issue of low agricultural productivity poses a very dangerous threat to household food security as well as income stability. Thus, this study aims to investigate the level and determinants of
technical efficiency in taff production among smallholder farmers in northern Ethiopia using a stochastic
frontier approach.
Material and methods:
The current study employs the stochastic frontier production function to
estimate the technical efficiency of taff production in northern Ethiopia. Using multi-stage sampling
methods, 392 taff farmers made up the sample.
Results:
The average efficiency was found to be 87.3%, which implies that the inefficiency cost for
farmers amounted to 49.79 kg (or ETB 1394.12) in yields per tsmdi. The study also shows that the
district’s taff production was significantly impacted by plot size, fertilizer, pesticides, and seed.
Conclusions:
Farmers with greater livestock, farm revenue, and high weeding frequency were also
more likely to be more productive than their competitors. Moreover, consistent with authors’ expectations,
male-headed households produced taff more effectively. In contrast to respondents with lower
levels of education, heads of families with higher levels of education, against authors’ expectations
and dominant literature, exhibited lower levels of efficiency. To increase taff output, it is therefore
essential to align the existing system in such a way that it addresses the supply and availability of
fertilizers, pesticides, and agronomic practices (weeding and other improved packages).