Technical innovation and farm productivity growth in dryland Africa: The effects of structural adjustment on smallholders in Kenya
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This paper uses non-parametric approach to measure technical innovation and productivity
growth at the smallholder farm-level in dry-land sub-Saharan Africa during the initial years of
the structural adjustment programmes for agriculture. Data from Kenya for two production
years, 1991/2 and 1995/6 are used to construct a Malmquist productivity index. The results
show that the rise in input prices led to reduced use of modern inputs, so that efficiency
increased at 12% per year. However, lower use of modern varieties and less fertiliser also gave
technological regression at 2.5% per annum, so that the overall outcome was productivity
growth of 3% per annum. However, productivity improvement cannot be sustainable without
technological progress.