Performance of integrated crop-small ruminant production systems in West Africa

This paper examines the performance of integrated crop-small-ruminant systems in the Sub-humid and the Soudan-Sahelian zones of West Africa. Using cross-sectional data from 712 farmers from The Gambia, Ghana, Mali and Benin, the translog stochastic production frontier is used to estimate the technical efficiencies of farmers in each country. The results suggest average estimated technical efficiencies of 68.0, 65.1, 50.6 and 45.5% for The Gambia, Ghana, Mali and Benin, respectively. Technical efficiency was influenced by gender, household size, age and access to credit. However, the effect of these factors varied across the countries suggesting the need for country specific factors as entry points for policies and interventions for enhancing productivity of crop-small-ruminant systems. Furthermore, strengthening existing innovative platforms could enhance farmers' access to relevant production and marketing information and improved crop-small-ruminant technologies for enhanced crop-small-ruminant productivity in West Africa.