PR - A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Of Bambara Groundnut Production In Western Kenya (p74-80)

Bambara Groundnut (Vigna subterranean (L) Verd) is a palatable indigenous crop that is rich in nutrients (the ripe seed contains on average 10% water, 15-20% protein, 4-9% fat, 50-65% carbohydrate and 3-5% fibre), and therefore has immense potential as a food security crop. Despite this potential, and just as for many other indigenous crops, little research on the crop has been done. Although the crop is near extinct in Kenya, it is cultivated in a few Western province districts. The objective of the research was to determine the production efficiency of Bambara groundnut production in Western Kenya. The study hypothesized that Bambara groundnut production is technically inefficient. Given that very few farmers produced bambara groundnut, a census sampling procedure was used to pick as many farmers as would be found; this achieved 59 farmers. The SPSS was used to generate descriptive statistics while the stochastic frontier analysis was used to estimate the technical efficiency of bambara groundnut production. Results show that producers had an average technical efficiency of 38.4% indicating that bambara groundnut production was inefficient.

Keywords: Bambara groundnut, stochastic frontier analysis, technical efficiency, western Kenya