Socio-economic and institutional factors underlying efficiency of smallholder vegetable farms in Southwest region of Cameroon

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of vegetable farmers within the tree-crop based rainforest agro-ecological zone in Southwest region of Cameroon. Design/methodology/approach The non-parametric data envelopment analysis method was used to evaluate technical and scale efficiencies while the Tobit model was used to identify factors affecting efficiency of vegetable production. Findings An econometric analysis result indicates that family size, education and extension service have significant impact on both technical and scale efficiencies, whereas credit service has significant impact on scale efficiency. Practical implications Future agricultural policies could include measures to improve the capacity of farmers to efficiently use existing resources. Social implications The study highlighted that encouraging more people to engage in farm labor and facilitating smallholder access to microcredit could render vegetable farmers more efficient. Originality/value In Cameroon, only a few studies have been conducted on technical efficiency. These encompass mainly cash and food crops. To the best of our knowledge, no single study has measured technical efficiency of vegetable farmers in forest-based farming of Cameroon.

The impact of microfinance services on the efficiency of family farms in Sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Cameroon

“…Akudugu (2016) examined the connections of agricultural productivity and access to credit and farm size in Africa and found that only informal credit impacts negatively on the positive link between farm size and productivity. Some theoretical and empirical studies show a positive relationship between farm size and efficiency (Thiam et al, 2001;Nyemeck et al, 2004;Abdallah, 2016;Bravo-Ureta and Pinheiro, 1997;Djoumessi et al, 2017). Others, however, found a negative relationship (Deolalikar, 1981;Chirwa, 1998;Nuama, 2006;Houd etondji et al, 2014;etc.).…”

“…They also find a technical efficiency of 0.75 for the joint cultivation of peanuts and maize. Djoumessi et al (2017) noted that the average farmer can increase their vegetable production by 33.67% under constant returns to scale, 26.57% under variable returns to scale in case of efficient use of available inputs and 11% in case of optimal use of cultivated areas for scale efficiency. In the same direction, Abdallah (2016) found that Ghanaian maize farmers are producing below the frontier with average technical efficiency of 47% and can greatly improve their productions.…”

Regional economic empowerment through oil palm economic institutional development

“…There are few previous studies which have comprehensively and specifically reviewed the regional economic empowerment through institutional arrangement and development of oil-palm-based downstream industry. Some studies which conducted partial tests are as follows: test on ACC by Hjalager (2001), Mwanri et al (2012), Kmieciak et al (2012), Shapira et al (2010), Rokhim et al (2017), Evans and Sawyer (2010), Ateljevic (2009) and Al- Dajani and Marlow (2013); institutional arrangement strategy by Salia et al (2018), Conteh (2012), Rahman et al (2017), Rosenberg (2012), Tijani and Yano (2007), Bayulgen (2015) and Lam (2016); and development of downstream industries (other than oil palm) by Otache (2017), Ibaba (2008), Mohanty (2012), Saifullah et al (2018), Kainiemi et al (2014), Ezema (2015), Yigitcanlar and Sarimin (2015), Ilori et al (2017), Iwami (2001), Xiong et al (2017), Khan (2014), Umejesi and Thompson (2015), Onuorah et al (2015) and Djoumessi et al (2018).…”

Moving off Agrarian Societies: Agricultural Productivity to Facilitate Economic Transformations and Non‐agricultural Employment Growth in Sub‐Saharan Africa

“…Several authors, Nin‐Pratt and Yu (), Alene () and Djoumessi et al . (), have estimated the average growth rate of total factors productivity in agriculture as approximately 1.96 per cent in the 2000 decade for SSA countries. During previous decades, the growth rate of total factors productivity in Africa was lower than the unit compared with that of Asia, which showed the highest rate of 2.9 per cent (Coelli & Rao, ).…”

“…Nonetheless, we observe a significant increase in agricultural production estimated to be over 72 per cent (in value-constant dollars USD) between 1990 and 2013 in SSA, with an important variation among sub-regions, going from 53 per cent in Southern Africa to more than 90 per cent in Western Africa (FAO, 2016).The African continent, particularly SSA, is the sub-region with the weakest increase in agricultural productivity. 2 Several authors, Nin-Pratt and Yu (2012), Alene (2010) and Djoumessi et al (2018), have estimated the average growth rate of total factors productivity in agriculture as approximately 1.96 per cent in the 2000 decade for SSA countries. During previous decades, the growth rate of total factors productivity in Africa was lower than the unit compared with that of Asia, which showed the highest rate of 2.9 per cent (Coelli & Rao, 2005).…”