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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1414912

Impact of Farm Mechanization on Crop Productivity and Economic Efficiency in Central and Southern Oromia, Ethiopia

Provisionally accepted
Tamrat G. Challa Tamrat G. Challa 1*Mengistu Ketema Aredo Mengistu Ketema Aredo 2Arega S. Ademe Arega S. Ademe 2Getachew L. Feye Getachew L. Feye 3
  • 1 Oromia Agricultural Research Institute(IQQO), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
  • 2 Ethiopian Economic Association, Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
  • 3 International Livestock Research Institute (Ethiopia), Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Farm mechanization has multi-dimensional impacts on agricultural production systems like economic efficiency and productivity, thereby improving the life quality of the farming community by reducing work drudgeries. However, these impacts were not studied empirically in Ethiopia.Hence, this research was initiated to estimate the level of economic efficiency, and productivity of wheat and barley, and the impact of farm mechanization on economic efficiency and productivity of wheat and barley. The analysis was done for 232 and 257 wheat and barley producer farmers respectively who are selected from Arsi and West Arsi zones. The stochastic frontier model was used to estimate the economic efficiency while augmented inverse probability weighted (AIPW) was used to estimate the impact. Based on the result, it is apparent that farm mechanization has a positive significant impact on wheat productivity while the percentage change in average treatment effect for the barley was not statistically significant. Farm mechanization also affects wheat and barley economic efficiency positively. Hence, we recommended the wider use of farm mechanization to improve economic efficiency and productivity. Therefore, policy design shall focus on ways to avail farm machinery easily like establishing farm mechanization service centers, and facilitating credit services for mechanization service renders.

    Keywords: Augment Inverse Probability Weight, Economic efficiency, Farm mechanization, impact, Stochastic frontier analysis

    Received: 10 Apr 2024; Accepted: 16 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Challa, Aredo, Ademe and Feye. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Tamrat G. Challa, Oromia Agricultural Research Institute(IQQO), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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