Gender-differentiated stochastic meta-frontier analysis of production technology heterogeneity among smallholder cassava farmers in Ghana

This paper assesses the differences in technical efficiency of, and the cassava production systems employed by, male-managed (MMF) and female-managed (FMF) cassava farms in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana. The study employs the translog stochastic meta-frontier model to analyse data obtained from 30...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAfrican journal of agricultural and resource economics Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 140 - 154
Main Authors Missiame, Arnold, Irungu, Patrick, Nyikal, Rose
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.06.2021
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Summary:This paper assesses the differences in technical efficiency of, and the cassava production systems employed by, male-managed (MMF) and female-managed (FMF) cassava farms in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana. The study employs the translog stochastic meta-frontier model to analyse data obtained from 300 randomly selected smallholder cassava farmers and finds an average metafrontier technical efficiency (MTE) of 0.06 and 0.03 among MMF and FMF respectively. The technology gap ratios (TGR) are 0.25 and 0.04 for the MMF and FMF respectively. The results suggest that both MMFs and FMFs are technically inefficient. However, the production technology operated on MMFs is relatively superior to that operated on FMFs, as shown by the relatively higher TGR for MMFs. The results also reveal that proximity to markets, extension access, off-farm economic activities and formal education are the major contributors to the technical efficiency of the farmers
ISSN:1993-3738
2521-9871
DOI:10.53936/afjare.2021.16(2).10