The cabbage production in Eswatini can hardly meet its demand and to close the gap some is imported from South Africa yet the country has a potential of scale-up production. Cabbage is one of the main relishes consumed by rural households across Eswatini. Among challenges faced by small-holder farmers is expensive farm inputs yet are needed for improved productivity of cabbages. To minimize costs of production with increased output, farmers need to use the scarce resources efficiently. Therefore this study was carried out to ascertain cabbage farmers’ cost efficiency and its determinants. The study used primary data collected from a sample of 60 out of 72 smallholder cabbage farmers cultivating on the Vuvulane Irrigation Scheme using structured questionnaires. Stochastic frontier cost function was used to determine the farmers’ cost efficiencies and an OLS regression was employed to determine factors that influenced farmers’ cost efficiency. The results indicated that majority of the farmers were males (66.7), aged between 31 and 40 years (44%), married (53.7%), and unemployed (47%). The majority attained high level of education (43.3%). Small-scale Cabbage farmers were cost efficient at 99.86% and the determinants farmers’ cost efficiency were: age, distance of farm from fertilizer suppliers and incomes generated from cabbage sales. Based on the results, this study recommends that stakeholders including government and the private sector should participate in developing strategies that will attract input dealers to extend their services near farmers and encourage more relatively young Vuvulane population to re-invest in the cabbage production enterprises on the irrigation schemes for increased regional cabbage production and relatively a minimum cost.

Key Words: Cost efficiency, cabbage farmers, Eswatini, cabbage production stochastic frontier