Abstract:

Agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains low relative to other developing regions, with substantial dispersion across and within countries. While much of the literature emphasizes technological gaps and factor misallocation, less attention has been paid to how market integration affects farms’ ability to use existing technologies effectively. This paper examines whether farm-level commercialization and local intermediary density are associated with improvements in technical efficiency—that is, the extent to which producers operate close to their production frontier given available inputs. Using harmonized farm household data from six Sub-Saharan African countries and a True Random Effects stochastic frontier model, we estimate country-specific production technologies and recover farm-level efficiency scores. We then model inefficiency as a function of commercialization, trader density, MSME engagement, and household and contextual characteristics. The results reveal substantial dispersion in performance, indicating considerable unrealized productive potential under current technologies. Participation in output markets is consistently associated with operating closer to the frontier across countries. Denser local trader networks are also linked to improved performance in several settings, though effects vary by institutional context. Quantile regressions show that commercialization is most strongly associated with improvements among farms operating farthest from the frontier, suggesting catch-up dynamics rather than uniform productivity shifts. These findings highlight the role of rural market systems—not only technological upgrading—in shaping agricultural productivity. Policies that deepen market integration and strengthen intermediary networks may yield substantial gains by enabling producers to operate closer to their existing productive potential.

Keywords: Agricultural productivity; Technical efficiency; Market integration; Commercialization; Hidden middle; Stochastic frontier analysis; Sub-Saharan Africa.