ifpri-kampala Newsletter – week of March 11th, 2019

Hello, and welcome to a new edition of the IFPR-Kampala’s USSP news and research digest!

As usual, this 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 how former rice farmer praise Vitamin A orange sweet potatoes and on how to increase coffee farmers’ profitability in African countries. We also have news articles on Tanzania’s cotton sector and link to a response to the Gates letter.

Under research, we provide links to:

Note that newsletters are archived on http://ussp.ifpri.info/.

Do you know others who may be interested in this newsletter? Please encourage them to subscribe on https://bjornvancampenhout.com/newsletter/subscribe/

Happy reading

News:

Former rice farmer praises Vitamin A orange sweet potatoes
HarvestPlus


Walter Odongo, a 31-year-old farmer from Dokolo district in Northern Uganda, has only praise for vitamin A orange sweet potatoes. He was previously a rice farmer, but was persuaded to switch to a healthier, less labor-intensive crop by an awareness-raising campaign.

Project boosts farmers’ productivity by 70 per cent
Monitor

Access to timely weather information, insurance cover and input loan has increased farmers output by 70 per cent under the Market-led, User-owned ICT4Ag-enabled Information Service, a study has shown.

Will the Atiak Sugar factory and Soroti fruit processing plant see the light of the day?
Monitor

Two factories, both being supported by Uganda Development Corporation, the government’s investment and development arm, share similar aspirations and frustration.  Given the notable progress thus far, the two processing plants —Soroti Fruit Factory based in eastern Uganda and Atiak Sugar Factory located in the northern part of the country, will eventually see the much-deserved light at the end of tunnel.  But until then, the two are still work in progress.

How to increase coffee farmers’ profitability in African countries
Global coffee platform

The study in Uganda focused on the current challenges faced by coffee farmers when it comes to operating commercially, which needs to be address more efficiently to benefit coffee farming families in the country. The Ugandan Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) which is chairing the Ugandan Coffee Platform has been using the study to engage commercial farmers to join coffee production.    

Can a new initiative save Rwanda’s ailing agriculture sector?
New Times

The Rwandan Ministry of Finance is moving to de-risk the local agriculture sector through agriculture insurance with the hope of improving its attractiveness to the local and foreign private sector, including financial institutions. Investors continue to shy away from the sector citing reasons such as inadequate data on the sector, dependence on unpredictable weather patterns, reliance of traditional practices, low output among other challenges.

Striving to transform Tanzania’s cotton sector
ODI

Cotton growing and ginning is one of Tanzania’s top three agricultural export industries. It is a major source of livelihood for up to half a million smallholder farmers, mostly in the large region of enduring rural poverty lying to the south and east of Lake Victoria, known in Tanzania as the Lake Zone. The sector has been underperforming for 50 years, with productivity stagnating and international prices and therefore earnings falling in line with productivity gains in competitor countries.

Tariff, non-tariff barriers hit Eastern Africa grain trade
News Ghana

Tariff and non-tariff barriers are adversely affecting grain trade across the Eastern African region.  The barriers arising from rules of origin are being enforced on commodities such as rice, sugar, wheat and confectioneries.

How farmers are making the most of digital technologies in East Africa
CTA


Two-thirds of the population in Africa are employed in agriculture, with the vast majority being smallholder farmers. Agriculture could provide one of the best pathways out of poverty, but many farmers lack the knowledge and means to improve their farming practices. However, digital technologies are beginning to change this. 

Promoting urban agriculture for food security
New Times

Urban agriculture is becoming prominent in many African cities. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, urban gardens in some communities are practiced as a part of urban agriculture. It forms at least 60 per cent of the informal sector and urban agriculture is the second largest urban employer. 

Why farmers aren’t focused on reducing emissions: a response to the Gates letter
Palladium

In their annual letter released this week, Bill and Melinda Gates identify agriculture as one of the five “grand challenges” of climate change. The Gates rightly state that the world must find ways to mitigate the impact agriculture is having, while acknowledging the priorities of farmers in low-income countries who are already facing the climate crisis’ effects.

German hops hero
Croplife

German beer is famous around the world. Most brewers in Germany still follow a 500-year old recipe that combines water, hops, malt and alt yeast.

Humanitarians struggle to address environment: ‘It’s nice but it’s not crucial’
World Agroforestry

With growing stress on natural resources, emergency workers have begun to examine their interventions. Environmental mismanagement can be fatal. Focusing on approaches that are built on the Sustainable Development Goals and with the assistance of organizations, like the UN and World Agroforestry, help is at hand.

New diet, new destiny? Saving the planet takes more than changing what we eat
Food Tank

When the EAT-Lancet Commission launched a new landmark report last month, it was widely interpreted as saying that forking down less red meat and more vegetables should ensure that we can provide nutritious food for 10 billion people while maintaining a healthy Earth.  However, while changing our diets can help turn around planetary degradation, the challenge is greater than that. As the EAT-Lancet commission points out, the way we produce our food must also be changed to ease the pressure on natural resources, not least water.

Research:

Demand and Supply of Infrequent Payments as a Commitment Device: Evidence from Kenya
Lorenzo Casaburi and Rocco Macchiavello – American Economic Review, 2019.

Despite extensive evidence that preferences are often time-inconsistent, there is only scarce evidence of willingness to pay for commit-ment. Infrequent payments for frequently provided goods and services are a common feature of many markets and they may naturally pro-vide commitment to save for lumpy expenses. Multiple experiments in the Kenyan dairy sector show that: (i) farmers are willing to incur sizable costs to receive infrequent payments as a commitment device,(ii) poor contract enforcement, however, limits competition among buyers in the supply of infrequent payments. We then present a model of demand and supply of infrequent payments and test its additional predictions.

Demographic Change, Agriculture, and Rural Poverty
J Thurlow, P Dorosh, B Davis – Sustainable Food and Agriculture, 2019

Population growth and urbanization are associated with economic development. Structural transformation entails workers leaving less productive agriculture and moving to more productive industries, often in urban centers. Population growth slows with development, leading to greater dependence on capital and technology rather than on labor. This was Asia’s successful pathway. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is also transforming, but far less than other regions are and with its own distinctive features. Though Africa is urbanizing, rapid population growth means that rural populations are still expanding. While African workers also are leaving agriculture, they do so at a slower pace than workers in Asia and are finding work in less productive services rather than in manufacturing. Such “urbanization without industrialization” raises concerns about Africa’s ability to create enough jobs for its urban workforce and underscores the need for continued focus on rural Africa. This chapter reviews the linkages between urbanization, agriculture and rural poverty in SSA, where most of the world’s poor will soon reside. It suggests that much of the economic growth and structural change that Africa enjoyed over the past two decades, attributable to a shift out of agriculture, was in fact an expansion of downstream components of the agriculture food system. Like agriculture, many downstream activities have strong linkages to poverty reduction. Governments concerned about jobs and poverty will need to raise productivity, not only in agriculture, but also throughout the entire food system. Since many downstream processing and trading activities are in towns and cities, promoting future poverty reduction will require greater alignment between agricultural and urban policies. Demographic change and rural-urban linkages will continue to be powerful drivers of global poverty reduction, but ensuring inclusive transformation will require broader development perspectives and policy coordination.

Why interventions in the seed systems of roots, tubers and bananas crops do not reach their full potential
CJM Almekinders, S Walsh, KS Jacobsen…- Food Security, 2019

Seed systems for roots, tuber, and banana (RTB) crops receive relatively little attention from development-oriented research and commercial seed sector actors, despite their importance for food security, nutrition and rural livelihoods. We review RTB seed systems—with particular reference to potato, sweetpotato, cassava, yam and banana —to reflect on current seed system development approaches and the unique nature of these systems. We refer to our own experiences, literature and 13 case studies of RTB seed system interventions to identify gaps in our knowledge on farmer practices in sourcing and multiplying seed, and processes affecting seed quality. Currently, most approaches to developing RTB seed systems favour decentralised multiplication models to make quality seed available to smallholder farmers. Nevertheless, arguments and experiences show that in many situations, the economic sustainability of these models cannot be guaranteed, among others because the effective demand of farmers for seed from vegetatively propagated crops is unclear. Despite the understudied nature of farmers’ agronomic and social practices in relation to seed production and sourcing in RTB crops, there is sufficient evidence to show that local RTB seed systems are adaptive and dynamic. Our analysis suggests the paramount importance of understanding farmers’ effective demand for seed and how this affects the sustainable supply of quality seed from specialized producer-entrepreneurs, regardless of the seed system paradigm. From the case studies we learnt that few interventions are designed with a rigorous understanding of these issues; in particular, what types of interventions work for which actors, where, and why, although this is a necessary condition for prioritizing investments to increase the use of improved seed by smallholder farmers.

Does large farm establishment create benefits for neighboring smallholders? Evidence from Ethiopia
D Ali, K Deininger, A Harris – Land Economics, 2019

Large-scale agricultural investment has expanded rapidly over the past decade, justified partly by the expectation that established smallholders will benefit from positive spillovers. We estimate spillovers between large and small farms in Ethiopia, using variation over time in proximity or intensity of exposure to large farms. We find that between 2004 and 2014, establishing commercial farms did not lead to job creation and provided only modest benefits in terms of technology, input market access, and resilience to crop shocks. This suggests that in Ethiopia a more strategic approach may be needed to maximize benefits from large farm formation for smallholders.

African Indigenous Vegetable Seed Systems in Western Kenya
L Pincus, M Croft, R Roothaert, T Dubois – Economic Botany, 2019

African indigenous vegetable (AIV) production systems are often constrained by the availability of high-quality seed. Concerted efforts to improve the informal seed sector could increase farmers’ access to seed, but these efforts are hampered by a lack of knowledge around the quality of farmer-produced seed and seed growers’ motivations for producing seed. This study collected seed samples and survey data from 127 farmers in western Kenya on their AIV seed production practices, uses of AIV seed, and motivations for growing seed. Germination tests showed that seed quality varied significantly between species. Seed access was still a constraint, even though the majority of seeds used by farmers are self-produced. Income from selling AIV seed differed significantly depending on gender, with men earning more than twice as much as women. This study demonstrates that the constraints farmers face in accessing high-quality AIV seed can vary significantly between species and over short distances. Female seed producers are not necessarily empowered to earn equal income as men, despite AIVs traditionally being considered a women’s crop. This study speaks to the importance of using localized information to develop programs for improving informal seed systems and continuing to employ gender-sensitive and transformative activities.

Diversifying conservation agriculture and conventional tillage cropping systems to improve the wellbeing of smallholder farmers in Malawi
D TerAvest, PR Wandschneider, C Thierfelder… – Agricultural Systems, 2019

Food production and the wellbeing of smallholder farmers are constrained by their limited financial resources, poor market access, and inadequate institutional support in southern and eastern Africa. Conservation agriculture (CA)–minimal soil disturbance, year-round ground cover, and diverse crop rotations–is being promoted to sustainably boost crop production, increase household income, and diversify diets for better nutrition. In this study, three cropping systems–continuous no-till maize, CA rotation, and conventional tillage rotation–were established on smallholder farms in the Nkhotakota and Dowa districts, two distinct agroecological zones in Malawi. Diverse three-year crop rotations in CA and conventional tillage systems included the alternative food crops sweet potato and cassava and the grain legumes common bean, soybean, cowpea, and pigeonpea. The effects of cropping system on labor use and financial returns, which served as a rough indicator of feasibility and farmer wellbeing, were analyzed for three years from 2011 to 2014. Over the three years of the study, continuous no-till maize produced the greatest gross and net revenues, despite also having greater production costs than CA and conventional systems. Although substantially less profitable than continuous no-till maize, the diversified CA and conventional tillage rotations were profitable for smallholder farmers, partially due to lower production costs. Sensitivity analysis was used to test the robustness of each cropping system under varying labor, input, and output price scenarios. Altering farmgate prices had the greatest impact on profitability, regardless of the crop grown. The input and output prices for maize were stable over the course of the study so that continuous no-till maize was the most robust cropping system. In contrast, high input cost and output price variability for alternative crops increased risk compared to maize, which may reduce their appeal to smallholder farmers. Reducing the risk of conservation agriculture rotations could provide smallholder farmers with more diversified diets and greater ecosystem services, such as greater rainwater infiltration and storage to withstand dry spells. Based on the results of this study, policies that reduce input price variability and increase farmgate prices of alternative food crops would have the greatest impact on the adoption of diverse crop rotations in Malawi.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this email and references to online sources is provided as a public service with the understanding that IFPRI-Kampala/USSP makes no warranties, either expressed or implied, concerning the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or suitability of the information. Nor does IFPRI-Kampala/USSP warrant that the use of this information is free of any claims of copyright infringement. The views and opinions expressed in this this email and references to online sources do not necessarily reflect official policy or position of IFPRI, IFPRI-Kampala or USSP or should not be taken as an endorsement.