Abstract
Literature argued that investments in the health programs for labour to prevent sickness in farming operations enhances agricultural productivity. This paper estimates a stochastic production function using 240 primary data to analyze the relationship between farmers’ dietary-pattern, health-status and agricultural production efficiency. Study indicated that workdays lost to sickness influenced poor farm-income and productivity and the effect is considerable. Sound dietary-patterns and health status enhances human productivity and farm-profit levels. Moreover, the incapacitating effects of sickness on farm-labour leads to diminishing effects on farmer’s efficiency level. Average value of technical efficiency per-unit of input tends to be higher for healthy farmers than for those affected by sickness. About 79.1% of the respondents spent 85.6% of their farm-proceeds on medical expenses, while 66.8% of the respondents were unable to meet medical expenses from farm-proceeds. Hence, expenditures on health upsets affect the availability of disposable cash income as household financial resources are diverted to pay for medical treatment. Thus, deny farmers inability to procure agricultural inputs that can improve agricultural productivity. Regression results confirm the negative effect of health barriers on farmers’ agricultural production-efficiency. Results suggest that one workday lost to sickness increase farmers’ inefficiency by 0.4%.
