Abstract

This paper uses cross-sectional data collected from 126 small scale tomato farmers in the forest, forest-savannah transition and the guinea savannah agro-ecological zones in 2011 to examine the characteristics of tomato based producing households in Ghana. It involved a description of the demographic characteristics of sampled farmers and an investigation of the production practices. This study further investigated the determinants of technical efficiency in tomato production among small scale farmers in Ghana. Descriptive statistics was used to present the characteristics of tomato producing households and the stochastic frontier analysis was used to estimate the determinants of technical efficiency and the inefficiency effect models. Results indicated that majority of the sampled tomato farmers were males. Almost half of the farmers had formal education at least up to the basic level. Almost half of the farmers cultivated tomato in both the major and minor seasons. Most of the varieties cultivated are exotic. Pests and diseases were predominant on the farms of majority of the sampled households. Consequently the use of pesticide to control pests and diseases is very common among sampled household. Our analysis further suggests average technical efficiency of 85.4%. In addition, factors such as extension services, land, frequency of weeding and fertilizer positively influenced technical efficiency of tomato farmers. Conversely, factors such as pesticide, labour and the frequency of pesticide application had negative effects on technical efficiency. The findings reveal the need for an effective and sustainable integrated approach to pest and weed management to enhance technical efficiency and productivity in tomato production. 

Key words: Tomato, production practice, technical efficiency, stochastic frontier production function, pests, diseases, Ghana.