Economic Efficiency of Maize Production in Swaziland: The Case of Hhohho, Manzini and Shiselweni Regions

Abstract

The study used a sample of 188 maize farmers to determine the economic efficiency of maize production in Swaziland. Descriptive statistics, Cobb-Douglas production function and Tobit regression were used to analyse the data. The results indicated technical efficiency of 64.7% suggesting that farmers could still improve the technical efficiency by 35.3%. While, allocative efficiency was 99.52%, suggesting that farmers were able to use minimum costs to get a given level of output. In terms of economic efficiency, farmers were 64.3% efficient. They were able to use minimum inputs and at minimum costs for a given level of output. However, farmers could still increase their economic efficiency by 35.7%. Technical Efficiency was affected by formal education (p<0.01), and household size (p<0.10, while Allocative efficiency was affected by formal education (p<0.10) and gender (p<0.05). Economic efficiency was affected by household size (p<0.10). The study has shown that maize farmers were relatively economically efficient; hence the null hypotheses (1. Maize farmers are technically inefficient, 2. Maize farmers are allocatively inefficient) were rejected in favour of the alternative. However famers can still improve economic efficiency by improving their technical efficiency. The study recommends that farmers should improve their technical efficiency by increasing productivity, and increasing amount of fertilizer applied per ha. There is a need for government to subsidize inputs for farmers and to continue with subsidizing the tractor hire services.