Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture No. 2/07
Study of total factor productivity of tef in Ethiopia: application of a growth decomposition approach
Beyene Tadesse Ferenji
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Franz Heidhues
University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany
Abstract
Production and consumption of tef as human food is peculiar to
Ethiopia. It is the major source of food and receives the largest
proportion of resources in agricultural production. A growth change in
this food crop can greatly affect the food sector in the country. This
paper attempts to demonstrate the trend of total factor productivity of
the crop after economic reform. A stochastic frontier model was applied
in the analysis.
The results show that the changes in policy and institutions
significantly improved the production efficiency of the crop by about
20% in the study period, whereas technological progress was severely
deteriorated (36%) in the same period. The decline in the technological
progress surpassed the improvement in production efficiency and
ultimately resulted in total factor productivity to fall by 25%. These
findings have shown that economic reform alone is not a panacea for
increasing food production in general. Technological advancement is the
other important component missing in the production of tef in this
country.
Keywords: efficiency change, food production, policy reform, technological deterioration, tef
JEL: Q 160
Vol. 46 (2007), No. 2: 119-144