Sustainable intensification pathways in Sub-Saharan Africa: Assessing eco-efficiency of smallholder perennial cash crop production

Elsevier

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Abstract: Eco-efficiency offers a promising approach for the sustainable intensification of production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is widely used for eco-efficiency analyses, is however sensitive to outliers and the analysis of the influence of external factors in the second stage requires the separability assumption to hold. Order-m estimators are proposed to overcome those disadvantages, but have been rarely applied in eco-efficiency analysis. This paper assesses the eco-efficiency of smallholder perennial cash crop production in Ghana and Kenya. It examines factors influencing eco-efficiency scores and in doing so, tests the application of order-m frontiers as a promising method for eco-efficiency analysis in the agricultural context.