Total Factor Productivity of Major Crops in Southern Ethiopia: A Dis-Aggregated Analysis of the Growth Components.

(1) Background: Even though agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, the improvements made regarding crop productivity appeared insufficient and had slow progress. Several studies suggest possible ways to identify the challenges in the productivity of the crop sub-sector. Nevertheless, there are gaps in the empirical literature in both knowledge and methods. The current study intends to identify the factors that affect growth in the productivity of teff, maize, barley, wheat, and sorghum crops. (2) Methods: Cobb-Douglass stochastic production function is estimated using a panel data set of the Living Standard Measurement Survey. To address the objectives of the study, a parametric estimation with a time-varying decay model with deterministic and stochastic components was adopted. (3) Results and Discussion: The effect of inputs on aggregate output was positive and significant at the 1% significance level, implying the presence of economies of scale. Variation in the inefficiency term explained 46.4% of the total variance in the composed error term. The average productivity of major crops was 6.19 per year. This study implied that technical change in the production of major crops increased by 22% with better use of available technology. (4) Conclusions and Policy Implication: The findings pinpoint that farmers should focus on technical change and intensification of improved agricultural inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]