Assessing the impact of NERICA on income and poverty in central and western Uganda

Abstract

Persistent food shortage and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are major development issues. New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was developed to boost crop yield and income of rural households in SSA. Although its high-yielding traits have become fairly well known, there is no empirical analysis of its impact on income and poverty. By taking the case of Uganda where a NERICA promoting program was initiated as one of the major poverty eradication measures, this study attempts to compare actual income with the hypothetical income without NERICA. We found that introduction of NERICA decreases poverty to a significant extent without deteriorating income distribution. Copyright (c)2008 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

Disseminating new farming practices among small scale farmers: An experimental intervention in Uganda

“…Many studies confirm the high average return of agricultural inputs or methods, for example, fertilizers for maize production in Kenya (Duflo et al, 2008) and hybrid seeds in Kenya (Suri, 2011), fertilizers for cocoa production in Ghana (Zeitlin et al, 2010), and NERICA rice variety in Uganda (Kijima et al, 2008). Nonetheless, such technologies tend to diffuse slowly and incompletely.…”

Can Africa replicate Asia's green revolution in rice?

“…Evidence from Uganda suggests that NERICA varieties could potentially increase the yield potential of upland fields from 1 ton to 2-3 tons per hectare (Kijima et al, 2008). And finally, a study in Doho irrigation scheme in Eastern Uganda reveals that paddy yields are as high as 3 tons per ha even without application of chemical fertilizer and despite continuous double cropping of rice for the last few decades (Nakano, 2008).…”

“…Kijima et al (2008) reported that in Uganda, where NERICA varieties were adopted, access to rice millers was greatly improved owing to the rapid increase in the number of rice millers and rice seeds have been increasingly available from seed suppliers and purchase from neighboring farmers. Tsuboi (2008) …”

“…On one hand, an impact evaluation suggests that NERICA varieties generated significantly higher yields in Benin, but similarly structured evaluations provide no strong evidence of broad yield improvements in Côte d'Ivoire, or Guinea. In Uganda, where rice is a relatively new crop, Kijima et al (2008Kijima et al ( , 2010 report favorable yield outcomes for some NERICA varieties. Moreover, consistent with evidence on yields, studies suggest consumption benefits in Benin (Adekambi et al, 2007) and Uganda (Bergman-Lodin 2005;Kijima et al 2006).…”

Relevant Issues for Sustainable Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…A recent port on agricultural technology use in Mozambique shows that agricultural productivity is generally low, for example, maize yields are estimated at 1.4 tons/ha which is far below the potential yields of 5 -6.5 tons/ha (Zavale et al, 2006). However, a good number of literatures have shown that adoption of improved agricultural technologies can lead to higher crop yields, lower food prices, higher real wages for unskilled workers, improved food security and reduced poverty (Cunguara and Darnhofer, 2011;Karanja et al, 2003;Kassie et al, 2011;Kijima et al, 2008;Minten and Barret, 2008). Kassie et al (2011) reports that adoption of improved groundnut varieties in Uganda, has a great potential to increase house income in the range of US$130-US$254 leading to reduced level of poverty incidence.…”