Subjective preferences for agricultural technology attributes and their influence on technical efficiency of smallholder maize farmers in Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

The study investigates whether the subjective utility of goals driving farmers' technology choices influence technical efficiency, with objectives of improving allocation choices, and providing effective extension services. Main goals of smallholder maize farmers were identified using the best-worst scaling (BWS) approach and efficiency scores generated using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). A comparison between farming goals and technical efficiency was established using principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis, and one-way ANOVA. The study used data collected from 187 randomly selected smallholder maize farmers from Nakuru County, in Kenya. The most crucial goals of farming technology were found to be increasing crop yields, decreasing production costs, and reducing pests and diseases. The least important goals of farming technology were, decreasing on-farm soil erosion, decreasing water requirement through the cropping cycle, and decreasing off-farm pollution. Mean efficiency score was 61% and not statistically significant across the cluster groups, implying that subjective preferences of farming technology do not influence technical efficiency among the group. All coefficients of farming goals were negative when regressed against SFA generated efficiency scores, inferring that current farming technologies lack important farming goals that drive them. The study concluded that subjective utilities of farming goals do not have a significant influence on technical efficiency, contrary to our expectation. we therefore recommend further research to be conducted, to test the robustness of the results and identify reasons for negative and significant relationship between off-farm environmental services and production efficiency. The study is the first one of its kind to relate subjective utility of goals driving farmers’ technology choices and technical efficiency, immensely contribution to the existing literature