Hello, and welcome come a new edition of the IFPR-Kampala’s USSP weekly news and research digest!
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As usual, this weekly collection of recent news articles related to agriculture is compiled from online news sources. We also include links to recent publications on agricultural and policy-related research topics pertinent to Uganda and the wider region.
This week, we report on fish maw wars and on the fact that Coffee’s future may be in dilemma. We also have an article on how Kenyans import $31.2m maize from the region to meet demand and on Knowing “WhatsApp” with food security.
Under research, we highlight:
- Does coffee production reduce poverty? Evidence from Uganda
- Micro-Level Welfare Impacts of Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Rural Malawi
- Youth Migration and Labour Constraints in African Agrarian Households
- Labour, profitability and gender impacts of adopting row planting in Ethiopia
Note that newsletters are archived on https://bjornvancampenhout.com/newsletter/
Happy reading,
News:
Fish maw wars
Independent
A row has developed between the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and fish exporters on one side and fish traders on the other over the sale of fish maws. “What we get from the sale of a fish maw is double or three times what we get from the fish itself,” an executive member of the Uganda Fishmaws Traders Association explained.
Women urged to engage in silk production to fight poverty
New Vision
Women have been urged to engage in silk production to fight poverty. According to the principal entomologist at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Christine Asaba, silk is a high value commodity for export. She said her department of entomology at the agriculture ministry is positioned to promote silk industry in the country.
Coffee’s future in dilemma
Independent
Uganda is currently implementing an ambitious plan the coffee road map to increase coffee output from the current 4.5 million bags to 20 million bags by 2025. But can the target be met at the time some farmers are reducing their land under coffee as a result of low coffee prices? This, among other issues, was discussed during the 16th African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition.
Forests fall, animals die, desert looms: Uganda’s burning problem – in pictures
The Guardian
Charcoal is an integral part of everyday life in Uganda, where most people rely on some form of wood fuel to cook or boil water. For many, the sale of trees also provides a valuable income. Yet this levelling of the landscape, which causes loss of habitat for wildlife and leads to climate change, is unsustainable
East Africa smells the coffee and moves to expand market
East African
Increased yield from the newly planted coffee, containing the coffee wilt disease and mitigating the effects of climate change – which are some of the measures to increase output to an ambitious 20 million bags by 2025 – Uganda could inch closer to the share of powerhouses like Vietnam, Colombia and Honduras on the global export market.
Kenyans import $31.2m maize from the region to meet demand
East African
Kenyan traders have taken advantage of the low prices in Uganda’s Tororo, Gulu, Masindi and Lira regions to ship in the produce, buying a tonne for as low as $180 per tonne.
Sesame Market Blossoms in Face of Global Demand
Sesame market blossoms in face of global demand
Addis Fortune
After a study by the Ministry that found lack of finance, traceability and updated market information were hampering the sesame market, a regulation was drafted by the Ministry of Trade to allow farmers to trade sesame outside the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) trading floor, which has been mandatory. The effort was a bid to mimic the performance of coffee. Just months after another amendment allowed coffee to be traded outside of the ECX floor, it fetched 215 million dollars in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Land rights are the key to climate adaptation strategies for smallholder farmers
Devex
This underlines the important role of land rights in climate adaptation and resiliency. Without tenure security, the women, men, and communities who increasingly depend on adaptation strategies for their survival may face additional obstacles.
Knowing “WhatsApp” with food security
Agrilinks
Fred, who had received training on e-extension by the Kenyan government in 2012, created a plan to use ICT apps, not only to tell people about the work he was doing, but to improve farmer-to-farmer learning and increase the number of farmers he could reach. Fred first created a chat group of just the farmers he worked with. As it became more popular, he coordinated with his extension colleagues and they decided to form a county wide group called “Real Farmers”. The result has been game changing.
Dutch cow poo overload causes an environmental stink
The Guardian
Dairy farms in the Netherlands are producing so much dung they can’t get rid of it safely. Now the WWF is calling for a 40% cut in herd numbers to protect the environment. But there’s a catch: the nation’s 1.8 million cows are producing so much manure that there isn’t enough space to get rid of it safely.
Plants feel the heat
Sainsbury Laboratory
Scientists at the UK’s Sainsbury Laboratory have discovered how plants vary their response to heat stress depending on the time of day, solving a 79-year-old mystery.
Research:
Does coffee production reduce poverty? Evidence from Uganda
Swaibu Mbowa, Tonny Odokonyero, Tony Muhumuza, Ezra Munyambonera, Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, 2017.
The results reveal a significant effect of coffee production on poverty reduction, through incremental household consumption expenditure. Households engaged in coffee production are associated with a lower incidence of poverty. The interesting evidence suggests that coffee production is a pro-poor intervention. These findings are confirmed by qualitative assessment that reveals farmers’ welfare improved to greater extent to satisfactory levels from coffee income.
Micro-Level Welfare Impacts of Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Rural Malawi
Francis Addeah Darko, Amparo Palacios-Lopez, Talip Kilic & Jacob Ricker-Gilbert – Journal of Development Studies, 2018
This article analyses the micro-level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity using a two-wave nationally representative, panel data from rural Malawi. Welfare is measured by various dimensions of poverty and food insecurity; and agricultural productivity is measured by maize yield and value of crop output per hectare. The poverty measures included per capita consumption expenditure, relative deprivation in terms of per capita consumption expenditure, poverty gap and severity of poverty; and the measures of food insecurity included caloric intake and relative deprivation in terms of caloric intake. Depending on the measure of welfare, the impact of agricultural productivity was estimated with a household fixed effects estimator, a two-part estimator or a correlated-random effect ordered probit estimator. The results indicate that growth in agricultural productivity has the expected welfare-improving effect. In terms of economic magnitude, however, both the direct effect and economy-wide spillover effect (in the non-farm sector) of a percentage increase in agricultural productivity on the poverty and food security measures are small. Efforts to effectively improve the welfare of rural agricultural households should therefore go beyond merely increasing agricultural (land) productivity.
Youth Migration and Labour Constraints in African Agrarian Households
Valerie Mueller, Cheryl Doss & Agnes Quisumbing – Journal of Development Studies, 2018
Using panel data from Ethiopia and Malawi, we investigate how youth migration affects household labour, hired labour demand, and income, and whether these effects vary by migrant sex and destination. Labour shortages arise from the migration of a head’s child. However, the migration of the head’s sons produces a greater burden, particularly on female heads/spouses (in Ethiopia) and brothers (in Malawi). Gains from migration in the form of increased total net income justify the increased labour efforts in Ethiopia. Weaker evidence suggests households in Malawi substitute hired for migrant family labour at the expense of total household net income.
Labour, profitability and gender impacts of adopting row planting in Ethiopia
Joachim Vandercasteelen Mekdim Dereje Bart Minten Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse – European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2018.
Improved technologies are increasingly promoted to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to address low agricultural productivity. There is, however, a lack of evidence on how adoption affects farmers’ labour use, gender roles and profitability. This paper analyses the farm level impacts of the recently introduced row planting technology in teff production in Ethiopia. Using a randomised controlled trial, we show that row planting significantly increases the total labour requirement and allocation but not teff yields, resulting in a substantial drop in labour productivity. There is no significant profitability effect at the farm level, seemingly explaining the limited success in upscaling the programme.
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