Maize is the most important cereal crop grown in South Africa. This crop is produced throughout the country under diverse conditions and in diverse environments. The study only focuses on technical efficiency because it is an important subject in developing agriculture where resources are limited, but high population growth is very common. In such a setting, increased output will depend more on efficiency improvements and assessing the scope for such efficiency improvements within the system is a crucial need. The objective of the study was to determine the level of technical efficiency and to identify the socio-economic and institutional characteristics as well as the entrepreneurial spirit that influence the technical efficiency of small-scale maize producers in the Tsolo magisterial district. Purposive and Snowball sampling techniques were used to collect primary data from 120 small-scale farmers. The stochastic frontier model was used to determine the level of technical efficiency. The Multivariate OLS was used to analyze the socio-economic factors and institutional characteristics that have influenced the technical efficiency of maize production. A similar linear regression model was used to estimate the influence of positive psychological capital and entrepreneurial spirit on the technical efficiency of maize production. The stochastic results revealed that small-scale farmers in Tsolo are technically efficient at 98 percent in maize production and experience increasing return to scale (1.37), which means that increase in the use of inputs, will as well increase their productivity and efficiency. The inefficiency model results indicated that age, years in farming, household size and extension contact significant and 3 variables, namely, as years in farming, extension contact and farm size are significant in the OLS model. Lastly the results of the linear regression indicated that, out of the 4 variables estimated in the entrepreneurial spirit, self-efficacy and resilience were significant with respect to its responsiveness to total maize output.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:11210 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Avuletey, Richard |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science & Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc Agric (Agricultural Economics) |
| Format | 134 leaves; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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