Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book Measuring Productivity in African Agriculture written by Simeon Ehui and published by ILRI (aka ILCA and ILRAD). This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper argues that partial productivity measures are inappropriate and at times misleading for assessing the performance of agricultural production technologies and systems. This is especially true where substantial changes in resource stock and flows accompany the production process. Superlative-index based total factor productivity measures are a more appropriate technique to compare production efficiency and sustainability of alternative systems. Mathematical formulations of intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity measures with and without considering changes in resource stock and flows are shown. Then three case studies from sub-Saharan Africa in which this approach was applied are reviewed. These studies show that total factor productivity measures are biased if changes in resource stock and flows are not appropriately accounted for in intertemporal comparisons, and differences in input intensity are not accounted for in interspatial comparisons.