African Journal of Agronomy

ISSN 2375-1185

African Journal of Agronomy ISSN: 2375-1185 Vol. 10 (4), pp. 001-011, March, 2022. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Measuring agricultural productivity growth in MENA countries

Mounir Belloumi1 and Mohamed Salah Matoussi2

1Institute of High Commercial Studies of Sousse, University of Sousse. B.P. 40 Street la Ceiture Sahloul III 4054 Sousse Tunisia

2Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Tunis, University Tunis El Manar, El Manar 2001 Tunis Tunisia.

Accepted 22 June, 2021

Abstract

This paper investigates the patterns of agricultural productivity growth in 16 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries during the period 1970 - 2000. We use a nonparametric, output-based Malmquist index to examine whether our estimates confirm or invalidate the previous studies results indicating the decrease of agricultural productivity in developing countries. We will show that on average, agricultural productivity growth increased at an annual rate of 1% during the whole period. Our estimations show that technical change is the main source for this growth. Those results weaken as a whole the findings of the other studies, however we find a decrease in agricultural productivity mainly for developing countries suffering from political conflicts and wars. This paper fills the void of hardly any agricultural studies on MENA countries collectively, especially on productivity trends.

Key words: Agricultural productivity growth, MENA region, Malmquist productivity index.