Abstract:
Our study provides empirical answer that verifies increase in productivity, if any, through
promotion of improved agricultural technologies among smallholder food crop farmers in
Africa. We specifically examined Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme
(RTIMP) technology effect on improving the production efficiency of cassava farmers in
Ghana. we stratified RTIMP cassava farmers into above average adopters and below average
adopters based on their adoption intensity scores and further examined differences in their
efficiency levels which we estimated by employing the stochastic frontier production model
(SFA). In order to empirically establish if RTIMP technology has actually had effect in
improving productivity of the cassava farmers, we estimated an adjusted regression model
(average treatment effect and average treatment effect on the treated models). Our results
show that the potential outcome mean technical efficiency of about 69% achieved by the above
average RTIMP technology adopters is significantly higher than that of the below average
technology adopters which was found to be about 64%. Our Average Treatment Effect on the
Treated (ATET) estimates confirm that there has been significant increase in the technical
efficiency of cassava farmers attributable to the adoption of the RTIMP cassava technology
