Analysis of allocative efficiency among small-scale farmers in Musanze District, Northern Rwanda

This article analyses the productive efficiency of small scale farmers coached by DERN (the Development Programme of Ruhengeri Diocese), in Musanze District, Northern Rwanda. Data used for the analysis were collected among 107 farmers, selected purposively from the study area. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to validate the study objective. A Cobb-Douglas production function was specified and estimated in the context of agricultural production for small scale farmers. This was complemented with APP, MPP and TFP. Results from the analysis substantiate that the agricultural production for the study period is positively correlated to the inputs used, namely labour, fertilizers and seeds as expected. The estimated coefficients were found also highly statistically significant and these can be relied on for inference (p<0.05). Therefore, it is concluded that these factors contribute significantly to the production of agricultural crops in the study area. The average physical product (APP) in Kgs is 31.35 for labour, 1.06 for fertilizers and 9.09 for seeds, and the marginal physical product (MPP) in Kgs is 14.96, 0.27 and 3.18 for labour, fertilizers and seeds respectively, whereas the total factor productivity (TFP) is 1.47. In view of these results, we recommend that farmers need to adjust the use of these inputs if more crop productivity is to be achieved.