Agricultural competitiveness factors: Mauritius and Senegal

The objective of this study is to determine the technical efficiency of family farms and identify the factors that determine their income. Based on qualitative and quantitative data collection, it leads to a number of results. First, 46.5% of farms in Mauritius are technically efficient under variable returns to scale and that productivity is significantly influenced by the gender of the farm manager and the area cultivated. Second, farms in the Senegal Delta cultivate an average area of 2.23 hectares and earn an average gross income of ¿2126.816 per season. In addition, the level of education of the head of the household, the size of the cultivated area and certain non-agricultural activities (fattening) are identified as determining factors of agricultural income. Therefore, policies to improve the formal education of producers, capacity building of their organizations and access to land and inputs need to be undertaken to modernize family farms.