The determinants of cereal crop productivity of the peasant farm sector in Ethiopia, 1981–87
✍ Scribed by Shujie Yao
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 848 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0954-1748
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This paper employs a Cobb-Douglas type production function to estimate the impacts of various farm inputs on cereal crop production of the peasant farm sector in Ethiopia. The production function is estimated for the major food crops, teff, wheat, maize, barley and sorghum, using seemingly unrelated regression estimation (SURE). On average, about 90 per cent of crop output is explained by the two major traditional inputs, land and labour. Less than 10 per cent of output is explained by chemical fertilizers. The impact of chemical fertilizers is small but statistically significant. Rainfall has an important impact on cereal production. Stagnant and declining food production is due to poor factor productivity, which is mainly explained by population pressure, poor farming practice and vulnerability to droughts.
' Valuable comments by Dr Colin Thirtle on an earlier version of this paper are gratefully acknowledged. The author is also indebted to Mr Robert Townsend for his assistance in setting up the seemingly unrelated regression. However, any errors or mistakes are of the author's own responsibility.
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