Mluge, Frank2024-06-032024-06-032023-05https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6208MSc. Dissertation in Agricultural and Applied EconomicsChicken products viz., meat and eggs are increasingly becoming an essential component of diets in urban centers of many countries with no exemption to Tanzania. Over recent years, Tanzania has experienced a mismatch between the demand and supply of chicken eggs. This is highly contributed by urbanization, rising population, and rising purchasing power and it has been accompanied by the fast-growing poultry sub-sector. However, little is known concerning the marketing and profitability and profit efficient of the poultry product particularly eggs as the majority of studies conducted on poultry focused on the technical and management aspects of the chickens not to mention the broiler part. When local production fails to fulfill domestic demand, the question on whether producers are efficient arises. Understanding the profit efficiency of any economic activity would be a significant step toward improving its productivity while ensuring its sustainability. Hence the objectives of this study included: profitability analysis and assessment of profit efficiency and its determinants among layer keepers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. To achieve these objectives, first, 127 layer keepers from all five districts of Dar es Salaam City were proportionately selected at random. Then information on farm-specific inputs and outputs quantities and prices and socio-economic and institutional characteristics of the sampled layer keepers were collected using a structured questionnaire. The collected data were subjected to analysis where the gross margin approach was used to assess the profitability of layer keeping followed by the OLS linear regression in determining the factors that influence profitability. The study further assessed profit efficiency and factors affecting levels of profit inefficiencies among layer keepers in the study area by using the Stochastic Trans-log Profit Frontier model. The study findings on the profitability analysis revealed that layer keeping was profitable in the study area with an average gross margin of 3483 TShs per tray of eggs, and still, there is potential to stimulate and increase the profitability as many producers have less than average gross margin. The main components of the production costs were feed costs (54.12%), housing costs (16.60%), day-old chick costs (9.41%), and Labor costs (7.22%). The study further discovered that some layer keepers had the lowest gross margins due to their relatively small flock sizes, which resulted in fewer eggs being produced, and their limited access to market data on tray prices, which led them to sell their eggs at the lowest possible price at the farm gate. The results in the Stochastic Profit frontier model revealed that the profit efficiency in the study area ranged from 13.79% to 91.75% with a mean of 61.68%. The mean level of efficiency indicates that there is a chance to increase profit efficiency by 38.32% only by improving the technical and allocative efficiency. The study established that the costs of feeds, drugs, capital inputs (such as building and equipment), and other inputs (including water, electricity, and transport) are the most significant factors that reduce the profit of the layer producers. Alternatively, the cost of bird stocking (d.o.c) and labor price have a positive impact on the layer producer profit level. Socio-economic and institutional factors such as age, sex, experience, household size, extension services, and location of the farm both had a significant influence on the profit efficiency levels of the layer producers in the study area. Based on these findings, the study identified a need to come up with a policy to control the volatility of the feed prices or to subsidies them as has been done in other agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and seeds. The study also identified a need for a policy guide on the marketing of eggs (grading them) in terms of their external quality characteristics to create and add value. The study further recommends that policy institutions develop institutional support to increase credit and extension or veterinary services accessibility among layer keepers and layer keepers should be encouraged to form associations for enhancing their chances of accessing these services, particularly credit from financial institutions through group lending.enLayer chickenChicken keepersThesis