Soil Fertility Management And Maize Productivity In Malawi: Curvature Correct Efficiency Modeling And Simulation

We assess the level and determinants of relative technical efficiency of maize-based smallholder farmers using a translog stochastic frontier (TL) model and a symmetric generalized Barnett production function (SGB), both of which are tested for economic regularity conditions. In addition, we conduct a bootstrapping procedure in order to infer about the probability distributions and significance of the relative efficiency values for farmers using different soil fertility management options. The results indicate that higher levels of relative technical efficiency obtain when farmers use integrated soil fertility options compared to the use of chemical fertilizer only. The consistency of the results across the two models increase the robustness of the findings. The paper concludes that productivity growth under the maize-based farming systems is considerably higher when farmers use integrated soil fertility management options. Thus there is need for policy and institutional interventions that enhance farmers’ adoption and scaling-up of integrated soil fertility management.