The form and content of decentralization has dominated development discourse and public sector reform agenda in Kenya in the last two decades. The case of agricultural extension service presents decentralization in a difficult context partly due to lack of information on its possible diverse...

Is extension an effective tool for increasing social welfare? The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of farmer financial participation in extension as an alternative to increase its efficiency. While extension costs have been high, the impact at farmers' welfare has not...

This study employs a stochastic frontier approach to examine profit efficiency of small scale rice farmers in Nigeria using farm-level survey data collected from 200 farmers in the study area. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and standard profit function. The result shows that...

Input-based dynamic efficiency measures are derived from an adjustment-cost directional distance function approach. A dynamic input directional distance function can be generated from an adjustment-cost technology where the dynamics are explicitly incorporated in the form of the properties of...

Have the 1992 and 2000 CAP reforms had any discernable effect upon agricultural productivity? In this study we derive detailed information on the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of arable farms in Belgium over a 16-year period from 1987 to 2002. Calculations are based on a carefully...

Agricultural productivity measurement has been of great interest in recent years. Although analysts have long recognized that land quality plays an important role in agricultural productivity, land quality has been difficult to quantify and include in productivity models due to d ata...

This study analyzed relationship between techn ical efficiency and socio-economic variables of cassava farmers in Nigeria. Data were collected from randomly sampled 360 cassava farmers in Nigeria using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics comprising...

Using a stochastic production frontier model and data for 2002 from a representative sample of Mexican rural households, in this paper we first study empirically whether or not small and medium farmers produce corn efficiently. The results show that corn production is inefficient, nation-wide...

Despite having the second largest livestock population in Africa and favorable climate, the contribution of the livestock, especially the dairy sector to the Ethiopian economy is minimal. The per capita consumption of dairy products of 16 liters is one of the lowest in the world. With increasing...

This article proposes an extended three-stage DEA methodology similar to Fried et al. (2002) to improve the measurement of productivity growth then the assumption of free disposability of undesirable outpu t does not apply. A directional distance function is used to construct adjusted...