Technical efficiency, soil fertility and farmers’ perception: evidence from smallholder maize production in Kenya

Soil infertility is one of the main reasons for low and stagnated agricultural productivity in subSaharan Africa. Because little scope exists for cropland expansion, agricultural productivity growth through technological change, increased efficiency in use of productive resources, or both remains a priority. This paper applies the stochastic frontier analysis framework to data on maize production in Kenya and estimates technical efficiency while controlling for environmental production conditions (soil fertility condition and rainfall) and agronomic practices, and evaluates the effect of farmers’ perception of soil fertility on technical efficiency. Maize farmers are generally technically inefficient, indicating existence of scope for yield improvement through better management of inputs. Farmers’ perception of soil fertility explains variation in technical efficiency, underscoring the importance of enhancing farmers’ understanding of the soil fertility status of their farms for appropriate input and agronomic management choices. Failure to account for heterogeneity in environmental production conditions and agronomic practices significantly underestimates technical efficiency and can lead to inaccurate inference.