Estimating agriculture technologies’ impact on maize yield in rural South Africa

Abstract New technologies and digital infrastructures are enabling smart farming with high productivity levels across countries. Yet, there is dearth of evidence on how they are enabling smallholder farmers in Africa to increase their farm produce. By focussing on smallholder maize crop producers in South Africa and relying on a panel data for the period 2011–2021, this study applied a stochastic production frontier framework and Cobb–Douglas production function to estimate the relationship between variance of yield increase in relation to aggregate modern technologies adopted. The stochastic production frontier model was estimated using simple ordinary least square, maximum likelihood estimation and probit regressions. The analysis adopted a three-stage procedure which began with the specification of regression model, the calculation of least residuals squares of the explanatory variables and finally the estimation of the variances in the functional forms of output levels. The results revealed a positive relation between the application of digital agriculture technologies and increased crop performance for rural maize cultivators in South Africa. The policy inference from this study is that accelerating investment in digital agriculture infrastructure offers the promise of a quadruple return for South Africa’s agriculture sector.