Analysis of Technical Efficiency: Empirical Evidence from Wheat Producing Smallholder Farmers and Commercial Farms in Bale Zone of Oromia, Ethiopia

Considering developing country settings, the concern is agricultural output short-fall resulted mainly from low productivity. The main factor for the poor performance of agricultural productivity, in general, is low technical efficiency. Given the small areas cultivated by smallholder farmers with limited resource and agricultural technologies are still at their infancy stage and relatively expensive, their success has been strongly challenged. One acknowledged way to tackle this challenge is ultimately efficient use of their available inputs. On the other hand, large scale state and private farming system requires bringing extensive areas of land under crop cultivation with the use of modern agricultural inputs, modern technology and hired labor. Under this book their level of efficiency and its possible determinants are analyzed to ensure that they can produce the maximum possible output given their resource bases and technology.