Comparative Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Wheat Production in Row Planting and Broadcasting Methods: Empirical Evidence from Southern Ethiopia

Abstract Introduction Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in Sub-Saharan Africa and wheat is one of the major staple food crops in many parts of the country. However, due to technical and socioeconomic factors the productivity of wheat is below the estimated potential. As a result of this the country remains a net importer of wheat. To improve this problem, row planting of wheat with improved level of efficiency becomes more crucial. This study was aimed to measure technical efficiency, yield gap due to inefficiency and identify the factors that influence the efficiency levels of wheat producers’ row planting and broadcasting methods in Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia. Cross sectional data from 203 farmers from both row planting and broadcasting methods were selected using multistage sampling procedure and analyzed using stochastic frontier Cobb–Douglas production. Results and Conclusions Descriptive results indicated that the average wheat output in row planting (3250 kg/ha) was 1360 kg/ha higher than in broadcasting (1890 kg/ha). The estimated results of the Cobb-Douglas frontier model shows that the mean technical efficiency was 83.4% and 57.8% under row planting and broadcasting respectively. About 646.882 kg/ha under row planting and 1393.038 kg/ha under broadcasting of wheat output was lost due to inefficiency. This reveals that under the existing practices there is a room to increase wheat yield more under broadcasting (42.2%) than row planting (16.6%) following the best-practiced farms in the study area. The SPF model indicates that NPS, urea, labor and seed, are significant determinants of wheat production level in both methods. The estimated SPF model together with the inefficiency parameters shows that education, age, fertility status of the plot, family size and extension contact negatively and significantly affected technical inefficiency whereas land fragmentation positively and significantly affected technical inefficiency of wheat farmers. Hence, emphasis should be given to improve the efficiency level of those less efficient farmers by adopting the practices of relatively efficient farmers in the area. Beside this, policies and strategies of the government should be directed towards the above mentioned determinants.