“…Second, despite recent commercialization efforts, sorghum is primarily used as a food security crop, particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions in the countries, whilst surplus is sold in local markets. KIIs across sectors and countries confirm that farming households' needs for sorghum seeds are determined by a combination of price, need for inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and labor, and the households' end-use of sorghum, distinguishing between sorghum as a food security crop or as a cash crop primarily for the emerging brewing industry in East Africa (AGRA, 2016;Orr et al, 2016Orr et al, , 2017Orr et al, , 2020. The dominance of sorghum for food security limits the demand for improved sorghum varieties (discussed below).…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The assumed channels of impact are that international or national agricultural research institutes develop improved sorghum varieties, whilst seed companies and agro-dealers supply these to farming households. In turn, processors (breweries, flour millers, feed producers) provide sufficient market-pull by generating demand for sorghum grain and (improved) seeds, partially through a substitution effect from maize to sorghum, which incentivizes farming households to buy seeds instead of recycling seeds (Orr et al, 2020; Rohrbach and Kiriwaggulu, 2007). In this study, we find only weak evidence for this.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For those small farming households that grow sorghum (i.e. those that tend to be input-constrained, poor and located in marginal areas), sorghum remains primarily a food security crop with limited commercial use (see also Orr et al, 2020). Fundamental challenges of market infrastructure including roads and access to input and output markets remain pervasive.…”
Section: Future Interventions and Conceptual Implicationsmentioning
Private sector-based seed system development remains a key development intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seed system interventions promoting the adoption of improved varieties through the private sector generally follow a linear, market-oriented technological adoption logic. A qualitative case study of the sorghum seed system in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania demonstrates that this model may not be able to drive the broad-scale adoption of improved sorghum varieties and to generate significant benefits for small sorghum-farming households. The findings suggest that the agro-ecological, social, and political-economic contexts critically determine the role improved varieties and the private sector can play in rural development. Improved sorghum varieties promoted by both the public and private sectors may not suit the needs, preferences and contexts of farming households. Seed companies hold sorghum as an add-on in their portfolio, investing less resources and research into sorghum compared to more profitable crops such as vegetable and maize seeds. Significant political-economic obstacles exist that favor the support of cash crops such as maize and rice, limiting the growth and development of the private sector in the sorghum seed system. We conclude that future interventions should build on approaches that aim to develop more diverse channels of seed delivery in both the formal and informal seed systems, adopt a livelihoods perspective to evaluate the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the adoption of new technologies, and acknowledge that seed system interventions are only one out of a portfolio of interventions to generate rural development.
“…Second, despite recent commercialization efforts, sorghum is primarily used as a food security crop, particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions in the countries, whilst surplus is sold in local markets. KIIs across sectors and countries confirm that farming households' needs for sorghum seeds are determined by a combination of price, need for inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and labor, and the households' end-use of sorghum, distinguishing between sorghum as a food security crop or as a cash crop primarily for the emerging brewing industry in East Africa (AGRA, 2016;Orr et al, 2016Orr et al, , 2017Orr et al, , 2020. The dominance of sorghum for food security limits the demand for improved sorghum varieties (discussed below).…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The assumed channels of impact are that international or national agricultural research institutes develop improved sorghum varieties, whilst seed companies and agro-dealers supply these to farming households. In turn, processors (breweries, flour millers, feed producers) provide sufficient market-pull by generating demand for sorghum grain and (improved) seeds, partially through a substitution effect from maize to sorghum, which incentivizes farming households to buy seeds instead of recycling seeds (Orr et al, 2020; Rohrbach and Kiriwaggulu, 2007). In this study, we find only weak evidence for this.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For those small farming households that grow sorghum (i.e. those that tend to be input-constrained, poor and located in marginal areas), sorghum remains primarily a food security crop with limited commercial use (see also Orr et al, 2020). Fundamental challenges of market infrastructure including roads and access to input and output markets remain pervasive.…”
Section: Future Interventions and Conceptual Implicationsmentioning
Private sector-based seed system development remains a key development intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seed system interventions promoting the adoption of improved varieties through the private sector generally follow a linear, market-oriented technological adoption logic. A qualitative case study of the sorghum seed system in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania demonstrates that this model may not be able to drive the broad-scale adoption of improved sorghum varieties and to generate significant benefits for small sorghum-farming households. The findings suggest that the agro-ecological, social, and political-economic contexts critically determine the role improved varieties and the private sector can play in rural development. Improved sorghum varieties promoted by both the public and private sectors may not suit the needs, preferences and contexts of farming households. Seed companies hold sorghum as an add-on in their portfolio, investing less resources and research into sorghum compared to more profitable crops such as vegetable and maize seeds. Significant political-economic obstacles exist that favor the support of cash crops such as maize and rice, limiting the growth and development of the private sector in the sorghum seed system. We conclude that future interventions should build on approaches that aim to develop more diverse channels of seed delivery in both the formal and informal seed systems, adopt a livelihoods perspective to evaluate the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the adoption of new technologies, and acknowledge that seed system interventions are only one out of a portfolio of interventions to generate rural development.
“…Figure 1 shows the apparent per capita consumption of millet, maize and wheat for the time series 1961–2013 in the six Sub-Saharan countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda (a recent review on why to invest in research and development for sorghum and millets in East and Southern Africa can be found in Orr et al 2020 ). Fig.…”
Section: Consumption Of Millet In Sub-saharan Africamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In addition, cereals including millet contribute over 40% to total direct human dietary calorie intake in Eastern Africa (Gierend and Orr 2015 ). Millet also is one among the mandate crops of ICRISAT who promote its production and consumption in this region (Gierend and Orr 2015 ; Orr et al 2020 ).…”
Known in the literature as underutilized, neglected or orphan crops, these crops have been cited as having the potential to improve food and nutritional security. The literature also highlights however that consumers in developing countries are increasingly abandoning their traditional diets that these crops are part of, and are replacing them by western diets. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the consumption and nutritional implications of expanding the participation of underutilized crops in current diets. This was done using a modified version of the microeconomic consumer problem. This was augmented with a linear constraint using generalized rationing theory that can be found in the economics literature. The method was applied to the case study of the consumption of millet (finger millet, botanical name: Eleusine coracana) by rural, urban-poor and urban-affluent Ugandan socioeconomic groups. The results indicated that millet could contribute to improving the intake of macronutrients and of some micronutrients, though the overall picture is complex. However, under current preferences and given its demand inelasticity, to achieve a substantial increase in the quantity of millet in the diet will require a significant reduction of its price. Otherwise, the net impact on nutrition as measured by the mean adequacy ratio will be only slightly positive for rural and urban-poor households. Our findings indicate that supply-side initiatives aimed at increasing the productivity of underutilized crops (reducing crop price) are likely to produce disappointing results in restoring their importance unless accompanied by specific interventions to expand demand.
The dominance of a few staple crops (maize, rice, and wheat) in most agricultural systems hampers the application of interventions to improve food security and nutrition. Research and development attention has focused on improving the production and utilization of these crops, leaving other crops under‐researched and underutilized. Subsequently, there have been high malnutrition rates due to poor diet diversity, yet there are “opportunity crops” that remain under researched. The opportunity crops can unlock solutions to food insecurity, malnutrition, a lack of biodiversity, and indeed poor climate adaptation. The study explored diversification in agricultural systems to analyze whether reorientation of research investment to include under‐researched crops can increase nutrient gain and enhance dietary diversity. Research outputs benchmarked as the number of publications from three leading African universities, Nairobi, Pretoria, and Ghana, were related to crop diversity and nutrition of crops in five clusters: cereals, vegetables, legumes, roots and tubers, and nuts. The findings show that maize was the predominantly researched crop across the three institutions. Low research outputs were observed for pearl millet, finger millet, and yam across the three institutions: amaranth and nightshade (Pretoria), sweet potatoes (Pretoria and Ghana), Marama bean (Nairobi), and soya bean (Nairobi and Ghana). There was nutrient gain across all five clusters, particularly from under‐researched indigenous crops such as finger millet, amaranth, nightshade, yam, sweet potatoes, Marama bean, and soybean. Nutrient gain was contributed more by cereals and root and tuber crops from Pretoria, vegetables and nuts (Ghana), as well as legumes (Nairobi). The findings demonstrate that incorporating research on the least researched crops with successful integration of other research and development initiatives (policy and dissemination) can increase nutrition and improve dietary diversity. The nutrient gain will positively affect food security and nutrition, contributing to the achievement of Africa Agenda 2063, the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, and reducing food imports. The findings can inform research investment and decision across different institutions within the African continent. Research investment targeting crops such as finger millet, amaranthus, sweet potatoes, soya beans, and cashew nuts is needed considering the nutritional contribution, climate change adaptability, market potential, and biodiversity contribution. Further analysis should explore production, socio‐economic (marketability and income generation), and environmental gains (adaptive ability to climate change) for specific crops. The development of frameworks to guide the analysis of the nature and scope of factors affecting the contribution of these crops to food security and nutrition, as well as research on specific crops considering geographic distribution and institutional involvement, is also needed.
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