Research background: Maize is the most important cereal crop produced by most households in Ghana for income and household food security. Despite its economic importance, not much study has been carried out on maize profit efficiency in Ghana, hence this study. Purpose of the article:This study estimated profit efficiency of maize farmers in the Sagnarigu municipal of Ghana to understand producers' profit efficiency level and its determinants as well as the challenges faced by maize producers. Methods: Data was sourced from small-scale maize producers while stochastic frontier analysis was applied to estimate a Cobb-Douglas profit function that simultaneously identified the sources of inefficiency. Kendall's coefficient of concordance was used to analyse the constraints facing maize producers.Findings & Value added: The findings indicated that maize farmers produced at 71% profit efficiency. This is one of very few studies on profit efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers. The result means that 29% of the achievable maximum profit was forfeited as a result of production inefficiency. Educational attainment and access to agricultural extension service decreased the level of profit inefficiency while age, herd ownership and membership of farmer organization increased profit inefficiency level of farmers. The most critical challenges reported by farmers were financial constraints, high cost of ploughing and difficulty in acquiring chemical fertilizer. The study recommends that access to agricultural extension service should be improved to cover more farmers while efforts should be made to expand educational access in rural areas to enhance the profit efficiency of farmers.

Research background:The challenge of resource limitations requires that farmers make judicious use of resources to maximize output and profit levels. This can be achieved through assessment of resource-use efficiency of farmers by estimating the level of technical efficiency and the determining factors. Purpose of the article: This paper compared the results of alternate DEA methodologies and applied different estimators to measure the influence of exogenous factors on technical efficiency of groundnut farmers in northern Ghana. Methods: The study used the traditional and double bootstrap DEA approaches to estimate technical efficiency while in the second stage, OLS, Tobit and double bootstrap techniques were used to estimate the influence of exogenous factors on efficiency. Findings & Value added: The double bootstrap DEA approach produced a mean technical efficiency of 51 per cent compared to 70 per cent for the traditional DEA approach. Concerning the determinants of technical efficiency, the DEA with Tobit (DEA+Tobit), DEA with OLS (DEA+OLS), and Simar and Wilson's double bootstrap DEA (SW-DEA) procedures produced very similar results. The findings shed light on two-stage DEA estimation as well as the modelling of the influence of exogenous factors on the DEA scores.

Research background: Maize is the most important cereal crop produced by most households in Ghana for income and household food security. Despite its economic importance, not much study has been carried out on maize profit efficiency in Ghana, hence this study. Purpose of the article:This study estimated profit efficiency of maize farmers in the Sagnarigu municipal of Ghana to understand producers' profit efficiency level and its determinants as well as the challenges faced by maize producers. Methods: Data was sourced from small-scale maize producers while stochastic frontier analysis was applied to estimate a Cobb-Douglas profit function that simultaneously identified the sources of inefficiency. Kendall's coefficient of concordance was used to analyse the constraints facing maize producers. Findings, Value added & Novelty:The findings indicated that maize farmers produced at 71% profit efficiency. This is one of very few studies on profit efficiency of Ghanaian maize farmers. The result means that 29% of the achievable maximum profit was forfeited as a result of production inefficiency. Educational attainment and access to agricultural extension service decreased the level of profit inefficiency while age, herd ownership and membership of farmer organization increased profit inefficiency level of farmers. The most critical challenges reported by farmers were financial constraints, high cost of ploughing and difficulty in acquiring chemical fertilizer. The study recommends that access to agricultural extension service should be improved to cover more farmers while efforts should be made to expand educational access in rural areas to enhance the profit efficiency of farmers.