| dc.description.abstract | In Kenya, irish potato is the second most consumed food crop after maize. The sub-sector contributes significantly to the country’s food security and generates income and employment to many smallholder farmers. Irish potato farming is an important enterprise for smallholder farmers in Molo Sub County. Despite its significance, smallholder irish potato farmers’ production is constrained by low farm inputs technical efficiency. The national actual production of irish potato is far much below the potential production level. For maximum and sustainable irish potato production to be attained efficient use of the available farm inputs in necessary. Therefore, this study focused on assessing the effect of farm inputs and smallholder farmer’s characteristics on irish potato production technical efficiency in Molo Sub County, Nakuru County, Kenya. Cross-sectional data on the 2018/2019 production season was collected using multistage sampling technique from a sample of 360 irish potato farmers. Respondents in the study area were sampled using purposive and random sampling methods. The study employed a questionnaire to collect the relevant data. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the socio-demographic and institutional attributes of the smallholder irish potato farmers. Effect of farm inputs was modelled under the Cobb-Douglas function form under stochastic frontier analysis approach. The model parameters estimated using the maximum likelihood method indicated that land allocated to irish potato production (0.262), seeds (0.629), fertilizer (-0.299) and fungicide (0.131) were significant inputs in irish potato production at 5% level of significance. The level of irish potato production technical efficiency amongst the smallholder farmers was varied. The relative deviation of irish potato production from the maximum possible production level due to technical inefficiency was determined by the discrepancy ratio which was estimated to be 94%. The respondents’ estimated mean technical efficiency was 71%, which implies there is an opportunity of increasing irish potato production by 29% through efficient use of the available farm inputs. Education, gender, access to extension services and farmer group significantly affected the smallholder irish potato production technical efficiency. The negative coefficients on the education, gender, access to extension and farmer group variables indicated that an increase in any one of them while holding the other factors constant would result in a significant increase in the level of technical efficiency. Therefore, smallholder irish potato farmers were producing below their optimum production level with the available farm inputs. This study encourages smallholder irish potato farmers to increase use of the land, seed and fungicide to boost production. Soil testing is also encouraged to ensure that the fertiliser used replenishes the soil nutrients for irish potato production. In order to boost irish potato production, farmers are motivated to increase their literacy levels, form or join existing groups. Access to extension services can also be urged to improve irish potato production levels. | en_US |
