Assessing the Technical and Economic efficiency of farmers in maize production in Uganda.

Abstract

Like other developing countries, agriculture in Uganda plays a pivotal role in economic growth, poverty alleviation, employment creation, foreign exchange earnings and food security. Maize, a priority crop in Uganda is dominated by smallholder farmers, with low levels of technical and economic efficiency. Given its significance, the Ugandan government has identified maize as one of the 15 priority commodities under the National Development Plans. However, despite its critical role, the country continues to struggle with low productivity, partly due to inefficiencies in both technical and economic aspects of maize production. This study aimed to offer a more comprehensive and precise understanding of the level and factors influencing technical and economic efficiency in maize production by analyzing these efficiencies over multiple time periods and across diverse geographical regions. The main objective of the study was to assess the technical and economic efficiency of maize farmers in maize production. the specific objectives were; (i) to estimate technical efficiency of farmers in maize production, (ii) To determine economic efficiency of farmers in maize production, and (iii) To determine the factors influencing the technical and economic efficiency of farmers in maize production in Uganda. The study utilized secondary data from the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS), collected by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) between 2013/2014 and 2019/2020. A sample of 8,386 maize farming households was analyzed to evaluate their technical and economic efficiency. Descriptive statistics, translog production function and Tobit regression were used to analyze the data. The results indicated technical efficiency of 56.7% suggesting that farmers could still improve output by 43.3% while, the mean economic efficiency of maize farmers was 9.6% which implied that farmers could still reduce input costs by 90.4% while maintaining the same output. The Tobit model results revealed that distance travelled by smallholder maize farmers from their households/farms to feeder roads, age of household head, household size, and education has a significant effect of the level of technical efficiency while gender of house hold head, age of household head, age of household head square, household size, education and all distances with exception of the distance travelled by smallholder maize farmers to the access the agricultural input markets had a significant effect on economic efficiency. The study concluded basing efficiency results that smallholder maize farmers had room for improving their technical and economic efficiency. Therefore, to increase the efficiency level ,the study recommended that; the government should prioritize the distribution of high-quality inputs to smallholder maize farmers through government programs such as OWC, investment in rural infrastructure, especially feeder roads, gender sensitive policies should be implemented to promote gender equity in agriculture, introducing low-interest loans and financial incentives for educated farmers can encourage investment in agricultural technology and equipment, fostering innovation. Finally, developing agricultural training programs that equip farmers with modern techniques and efficient resource allocation strategies will be vital in enhancing both technical and economic efficiencies in maize production.