African agricultural water efficiency: a technical efficiency analysis of African agriculture

Abstract

I investigate the impact water resource management and use of water inputs have on the efficiency of agricultural processes in Africa. The data was collected from NASA’s Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizations FAOSTAT/AQUASTAT databases. The main result of the Stochastic Frontier Analysis indicates there is inefficient use of all available water resources. Other results include increasing returns to scale for increases in a nations’ agricultural labor force, an increase in efficiency for an increase in the amount of land irrigated in a nation, and an increase in efficiency for an increase in the amount of fertilizer consumed. There is also evidence that agricultural productivity of the sampled nations has increased on average by 3% year-over-year over the period examined.