An Inquiry into Constraints on a Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of NERICA Rice in Uganda
Introduction
The recent sudden and sharp increase in food prices in international markets has significantly and adversely threatened food security in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which is a net importer of food grains (Benson et al., 2008, Ivanic and Martin, 2008). There is, thus, an urgent need to increase food production to alleviate the widespread poverty and food insecurity in this region. Given the increasingly limited room for the further expansion of cultivated area in many countries in SSA, there is no substitute for a Green Revolution, which enhances crop yield per unit of land, in an effort to boost the food production in SSA (Diao et al., 2008, Otsuka and Kijima, in press).
Since most of the increased consumption of rice associated with urbanization and change in diet is currently filled by imports (Africa Rice Center, 2008), the scarce foreign reserves that could have been used for the import of capital goods and materials necessary for economic development are actually used for rice imports. Thus, a Green Revolution in rice production is urgently required in this region. One of the ways of realizing a rice Green Revolution is to expand the adoption of New Rice for Africa (NERICA) varieties, high-yielding upland rice varieties suitable for the African environment developed by the Africa Rice Center (or WARDA). NERICA varieties have traits of traditional rice varieties in SSA (Oryza glaberrima) characterized by good weed competitiveness and resilience against major African biotic and abiotic stresses and Asian rice varieties (Oryza sativa) characterized by good yields, and absence of lodging and grain shattering, and high fertilizer returns (Jones et al., 1997, Wopereis et al., 2008). Indeed, the average yield of NERICA per hectare is found to be 2.5 tons on farm in Uganda (Kijima, Sserunkuuma, & Otsuka, 2006), which is significantly higher than the average upland rice yield of one ton per hectare in SSA (Balasubramanian, Sie, Hijmans, & Otsuka, 2007). Moreover, there is evidence that the adoption of NERICA increases the income of NERICA adopters significantly (Adekambi et al., 2008, Kijima et al., 2008). In addition to these characteristics, another advantage of NERICA is that the seeds can be self-produced by farmers as with other rice varieties. Hence, there is no need to purchase new seeds for several years, which enables the wide adoption of NERICA even in countries in which rice seed markets are underdeveloped.1
Even though NERICA varieties seem to have great potential for realizing rice Green Revolution in SSA, the adoption rate is still low except in a few countries (Rodenburg et al., 2006). One reason for this low adoption rate is the farmers’ low exposure to NERICA varieties (Diagne, 2006, Diagne and Demont, 2007, Spencer et al., 2006). The low exposure in West African countries was due to the lack of effective extension and seed delivery systems (Dalton, 2004, Spencer et al., 2006). In consequence, the diffusion of the NERICA varieties was mostly through participatory varietal selection (PVS) systems and community-based seed system (CBSS) training sessions conducted by WARDA and NARS, both systems of which are time consuming.
While paying attention to the role of extension, this paper highlights the dynamic behavior of the NERICA adoption by undertaking a case study of Uganda which is considered as a model country of rapid NERICA adoption due to successful public–private partnerships among the national program, NGOs, seed companies, and farmers (Africa Rice Center (WARDA), 2006). We found from the panel data of 374 rural households in Uganda collected in both 2004 and 2006 that more than 50% of the NERICA adopters in 2004 had abandoned it in 2006. Unless the problem of this high dropout rate is resolved, a NERICA-led Green Revolution will not be realized.
The purpose of this paper is to examine why the dropout rate of the seemingly profitable rice variety was so high. We identify that the major constraining factors are problematic program design and targeting at variable rainfall areas where the profitability of NERICA is low, and underdeveloped markets for seeds and rice milling services. Although we take the specific case of NERICA varieties in Uganda, the results will be useful for other countries which attempt to introduce NERICA varieties. We find that while the seed distribution program contributed to the early adoption of NERICA, it targeted not only suitable but also unsuitable areas for NERICA production where the profitability of NERICA relative to other crops is low, thereby resulting in massive dropouts in the unsuitable areas. We also find that while favorable access to input and output markets is an important determinant of NERICA adoption, the use of farmer-produced seeds reduces the profitability of NERICA most likely due to the deterioration of the quality of the seeds.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the NERICA program in Uganda. Section 3 presents the conceptual framework. Section 4 describes the survey data used in this study and their major characteristics. Section 5 explains the empirical models and results for the adoption decision. Section 6, analyzes the NERICA profit function, and Section 7 discusses the conclusions and policy implications.
Section snippets
NERICA program in UGANDA
Rice is now widely grown in many parts of the country, especially in the eastern and northern regions. Domestic rice production has not been able to keep up with the demand, which is growing fast because of rapid urbanization and changing food habits. As a result, Uganda resorts to importing about $90 million of rice (the third largest import item in the country) every year to meet the demand (Africa Rice Center (WARDA), 2006). The government is, therefore, keen to increase local rice
Conceptual framework
Our conceptual framework is based on the unique characteristics of the crop under study, i.e., upland rice in the context of Central and Western Uganda in which the high dropout took place within a short period of time. We focus on the possible effects of three factors, namely program targeting, market development, and relative profitability.
Data
The data used in this paper were collected in 2004 and 2006. Since the dissemination of NERICA started in 2002 as explained in Section 2, farm households growing NERICA rice were found mainly in areas targeted by the government’s NERICA seed dissemination programs and in areas near seed companies. Thus, we intentionally selected 10 NERICA-growing areas covering the Central and Western regions (Kijima et al., 2006, Kijima et al., 2008).
Determinants of dropout and adoption
In order to rigorously identify the critical factors affecting the adoption of NERICA rice varieties, we conduct regression analyses in this section. The adoption decision is modeled as the decision between planting a plot of land to NERICA and to other alternative crops such as maize and beans. It is assumed that if the expected profitability of rice is greater than that of the other alternative crop, rice is adopted. The expectation is updated by using past experience, while considering the
Determinants of profit
In the previous section, we found that relative profitability is one of the key determinants of the dropout from NERICA production in 2006. To achieve sustainable adoption, we need to understand what determines the profitability of NERICA. Thus, in this section, we estimate the profit functions.
Table 3 shows the plot-level characteristics such as plot location and cultivation practices related with soil fertility, seed source, and input use by the different adoption categories. The continuous
Conclusion and policy implications
Using panel data of 347 households collected in 2004 and 2006 in rural Uganda, we identified four types of NERICA adoption behaviors: continuous adoption in the 2 years, dropouts, late adoption, and non-adoption. The NERICA yield was found to be much higher among the continuous adopters than among the dropouts. Furthermore, for the dropouts, the profit from the NERICA plot is much lower than that for the alternative crop. The regression analysis confirmed that this relatively low profitability
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Peter Hazell, Derek Barley, Takashi Yamano, Don Larson, Tomoya Matsumoto, Kei Kajisa, and four anonymous referees for very helpful comments. We have benefitted from discussions with participants of the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) meeting in Nairobi, the Center for the Study of African Economics (CSAE) meeting in Oxford, and the Theoretical Economics and Agriculture (TEA) meeting in Tsukuba, seminar at Nagoya University. We are grateful to Paul Kandasamy
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