Author(s) :

Maria Erasmus, Coretha Komba.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Seaweed is amongst of the cash crops which are produced in Zanzibar. They are used as fodder, fertilizer, food also they are used in food processing and pharmaceutical. Seaweed farming demonstrated economic viability and sustainable improve the coastal communities’ livelihood. This study applied Stochastic Production Frontier analysis to determine the level of technical efficiency of seaweed farming in Zanzibar together with the factors influencing it. The findings revealed the average technical efficiency level was 77.2 which means farmers can improve their current output by 22.8 percent without employing more factors of production. The estimated parameters from the maximum likelihood revealed that seaweed farming technical efficiency was positively affected by farm size, amount of labors, capital and amount of seeds. On top of that, family members and farming experience showed a significant negative relation with technical inefficiency. Thus, they have significant positive influence to seaweed technical efficiency. Consequently, there were no enough evidence that being married, a farmer is female, education level, distance of the seaweed farm from the shores and age of the farmer have influence on seaweed farming technical inefficiency. Therefore, this paper encourages farmers to use and efficiently utilize the available production resources to enhance their level of efficiency. Key words: Technical efficiency, seaweeds

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