Innovation, Diffusion of New Technology and Productivity Growth: Evidence from African Agriculture

Abstract

Abstract:The paper studies the impacts of innovation and diffusion of new technology on productivity growth in African agriculture. Using FAO panel data, four output distance functions with linear programming method were calculated and the values used to obtain TFP growth estimates. The estimated TFP growth was decomposed into two distinct components associated with innovation and technology diffusion. The empirical results showed that TFP growth averaged 2.7% per year over the period studied. However, this performance masks the negative TFP growths (-1% to -2.8%) in the Sudan Sahelian, Eastern and Gulf of Guinea agro-ecological zones, respectively. This may be due to differences in the state of technology, the scale of production or efficiency. In terms of innovation and technology diffusion, a positive impact of innovation on TFP growth was observed only in two agro-ecological zones at 12.6% and 1.1% respectively. Whereas, the impact of diffusion of new technology was positive in all five agro-ecological zones at 2.5%, 2.4%, 2.3%, 2.1% and 0.2% in descending order of magnitude. Overall, the empirical results suggest that both innovation and technology diffusion have impacts on productivity growth, but the impact of technology diffusion is greater than the impact of innovation on agricultural productivity growth in the agro-ecological zones of Africa during 1986Africa during -2009