Working Paper 104 - Technology Gap and Efficiency in Cocoa Production in West and Central Africa: Implications for Cocoa Sector Development

Abstract

This paper applies the recentlydeveloped metafrontier functiontechnique to investigate productivitypotentials and efficiencies in cocoaproduction in West and Central Africa.The methodology enables the estimationof national technology gap ratios (TGRs)by using a decomposition resultinvolving both the national productionfrontiers and the (regional)metaproduction frontier. Empiricalresults are derived using acomprehensive dataset collected duringone of the larger surveys of cocoafarmers in four West and Central Africacountries, namely Cameroon, Ghana,Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. The data andanalysis support the view that technicalefficiency in cocoa production is globallylow, and technology gap plays animportant part in explaining the ability ofcocoa sector in one country to competewith cocoa sectors in other countries inthe West and Central Africa region. Thepaper ends by highlighting relevantstrategies for sustainable cocoadevelopment in Africa.