Trends of Maize Production in Mozambique: A Fixed Effects Model Analysis of Two Decades (2002-2023)

Teklu Gebretsadik and Benedito Cunguara

Background and Objective: In Mozambique, agriculture has been based on poorly resourced farmers over the past decades and is the mainstay of the economy and livelihood activity in rural areas. To find methods for raising productivity, based on panel data, this study was initiated to examine the relationship between maize production in cropped areas and its trends in production for the past 20 years. Materials and Methods: This study was done by developing a fixed-effects pooled data model to estimate the link between the area and maize production. The study variables namely cropped area and maize production were found modeled. The relationship between maize production and area in log trends was investigated to whether progress has been made in production for the past 20 years in Mozambique based on panel data. The Hausman, Breusch Pagan and Wald tests were used and with (Rho of 76%), the fixed effect model showed high significance at 0.05 level of pooled OLS model that fits the data well (F = 87.84 and p<0.0000) regression analysis of study variables with notable changes observed in the cropped area and maize yield (p<0.0000). Results: The area under maize production’s slope coefficient was found highly significant, indicating that the cropping area under maize was a key factor in variations in maize production. Accordingly, for every unit increase in area; the production would be increased by 4% and for every change in area by 1%, the production of maize increase by 0.715%. The model’s R² value as determined by statistical analysis is 0.9518. Conclusion: The study assured the area cropped significantly influenced the production of maize, showing the trend of production and area cropped are not significantly the same.

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