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 low-cost improvements through agricultural extension lift food security in Uganda Low-cost improvements through agricultural extension lift food security in Uganda and on How AgTech is changing East African economies. We also have news articles on what AI can do for smallholder farmers and on research that shows coffee gives your sperm a boost!
Under research reports, policy briefs and discussion papers, we link to the following documents:
- Understanding land dynamics and livelihoods in refugee hosting districts of northern Uganda
- Evaluating the shifting priorities of Uganda’s agricultural extension services: A micro perspective
Under research, we provide links to:
- Thinking Outside the Plot: Insights on Small-Scale Mechanisation from Case Studies in East Africa
- Synergies between Different Types of Agricultural Technologies in the Kenyan Small Farm Sector
- Junior Farmer Field Schools, Agricultural Knowledge and Spillover Effects: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Northern Uganda
- Agricultural transformation and food and nutrition security in Ghana: Does farm production diversity (still) matter for household dietary diversity?
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Happy reading
News:
Low-cost improvements through agricultural extension lift food security in Uganda
Agrilinks
A lot of focus in agricultural development is put on promoting technologies like improved seeds and chemical fertilizer. They can transform food security, but for the poorest small-scale and subsistence farmers—who are often women—the high cost of these inputs keeps them well out of reach.
Creating knowledge and supporting action: citizen-generated evidence from food diaries in Uganda
IIED
Citizens in Western Uganda are using food diaries to generate data on food consumption – helping them understand their own diets and advocate for a better food system.
Understanding Uganda’s Commodity Exchange
Monitor
Minister Amelia Kyambadde says Uganda needs a national commodity exchange to regulate prices, quality but also to trade online. Such an exchange is a trading floor/platform for commodities from the warehouses especially agricultural commodities, grains in particular according to the ministry. Other commodities are expected to come on board later.
Firms decry increase in trade barriers across East Africa
East African
Uganda’s cooking oils and fats can’t enter the Tanzanian market because of alleged failure to meet the EAC Rules of Origin. Despite Tanzania actively blocking goods from the EAC, it is willing to allow in manufactured products from Asia.
The great African regreening: millions of ‘magical’ new trees bring renewal
The Guardian
From the peanut basin of Senegal to the Seno plains of Mali, to Yatenga, formerly the most degraded region of Burkina Faso, and as far south as Malawi: Gaos are thriving in Africa. And over the past three decades, the landscape of southern Niger has been transformed by more than 200m new trees, many of them Gaos.
How AgTech is changing East African economies
ODI
The evidence shows that ‘AgTech’ – the digital technologies transforming the agriculture industry – is already having wider impacts across East Africa. Instead of governments and multinationals funding farmers to produce food to established standards, private equity is now financing new innovative agricultural products and services targeting young people, who are pioneering AgTech development.
The chips are down: Europe’s great potato crisis
The Economist
Europe faces a potato crisis. Around 53m tonnes of spuds are harvested in the EU each year. Germany, the biggest producer, usually digs up 10m-12m tonnes. But thanks to a dry summer, the tubers have come a cropper.
World hunger is on the rise, and better data on agriculture could fix that
Quartz
Only two of sub-Saharan Africa’s 46 countries have reliable data on agriculture. This means they can’t make informed decisions on the types of crops that are better suited for a season, for instance, or predict famine.
Changing the lives of rural women and girls for the better
ODI
Women who farm are often disadvantaged. Much remains to be done to establish their rights to land, livestock and water, and to improve their access to inputs (feedstuffs, fertilizers, etc.), finance and technical knowledge.
Agricultural Intelligence: what AI can do for smallholder farmers
Food Tank
For the team behind the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, farming is the next frontier for using artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently solve complex problems. The team—which includes biologists, agronomists, nutritionists, and policy analysts working with data scientists—is using Big Data tools to create AI systems that can predict the potential outcomes of future scenarios for farmers.
Coffee gives your sperm a boost, scientists tell would-be fathers
The Times
Men could help their chances of becoming fathers by drinking just two cups of coffee a day, a study suggests. Researchers looking at 500 couples trying for a baby found the right level of caffeine intake in men in the week before a couple had sex appeared to double the chance of pregnancy.
How Bill Gates thinks about climate change, innovation, and the SDGs
Devex
In a conference call during the Global Climate Action Summit held in San Francisco last month, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said that the power of innovation should extend to climate change. Gates believes that innovation will be key to confronting climate change, helping those affected by it, and meeting the growing demand for energy.
IFAD and FAO commit to pastoral development
Pastres
There is a growing interest in pastoral systems at the global level. However, in the past, pastoral development has, at times, been confused with livestock development. Now there seems to be new efforts to embrace the challenges of improving the living standards of people in pastoral systems; this also implies dealing with variable resource flows and uncertain conditions.
Policy Briefs, Research Reports and Discussion Papers
Understanding land dynamics and livelihoods in refugee hosting districts of northern Uganda
UNDP
This brief provides insights into land as the main productive asset for building self-reliance of refugees and host communities in Northern Uganda. It provides evidence on the access to and utilization of land considering the growing number of refugees, also considering how the interplay of the local social, political and economic context influences decisions on land. It also highlights the impact of decisions land on household livelihoods and the environment and proposes options for optimizing Uganda’s progressive refugee policy.
Evaluating the shifting priorities of Uganda’s agricultural extension services: A micro perspective
USSP Policy Brief
The Ugandan government is increasingly emphasizing input distribution over extension advisory services in its agricultural budget allocations, broadly defined. Both expenditure items are arguably important; hence, this note makes an empirical case for a more balanced approach to allocating public resources within the agricultural sector. Econometric results from official household-level survey data suggest that combining inputs and extension services is associated with higher yields. For maize and groundnut, in particular, the benefits of offering modern inputs and extension together exceed those of providing either exclusively. We conclude that the government’s current approach, which focuses mainly on the logistics of input distribution, may be misguided.
Research:
Thinking Outside the Plot: Insights on Small-Scale Mechanisation from Case Studies in East Africa
David Kahan, Roger Bymolt & Fred Zaal – journal of Development Studies, 2018
The changing agricultural sector and the challenges faced by smallholders call for the need for farm mechanisation suited to smallholder farming. Conventional four-wheeled tractors (4WTs) are not feasible for many smallholders owing to their high capital costs, unsuitability for fragmented holdings as well as topography and slope. More appropriate technologies are needed such as two-wheeled tractors (2WTs) and their requisite accessories. Our findings show that opportunities exist for the introduction of 2WTs in maize based systems through service provider models combining a number of operations that can be offered throughout the year and targeted to niche areas where 4WT access is unlikely. The paper also suggests that attention needs to be given concurrently to development of the 2WT supply chain to ensure that its profitability is sustainable.
Synergies between Different Types of Agricultural Technologies in the Kenyan Small Farm Sector
Priscilla Wainaina, Songporne Tongruksawattana & Matin Qaim – journal of Development Studies, 2018
Sustainable intensification of agriculture will have to build on various innovations, but synergies between different types of technologies are not yet sufficiently understood. We use representative data from small farms in Kenya and propensity score matching to compare effects of input-intensive technologies and natural resource management practices on household income. When adopted in combination, positive income effects tend to be larger than when individual technologies are adopted alone. The largest gains occur when improved seeds are adopted together with organic manure and zero tillage. These results point at important synergies between plant breeding technologies and natural resource management practices.
Junior Farmer Field Schools, Agricultural Knowledge and Spillover Effects: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Northern Uganda
Jacopo Bonan & Laura Pagani – journal of Development Studies, 2018
We analyse the impact of a junior farmer field school project in Northern Uganda on students’ agricultural knowledge and practices. We also test for the presence of intergenerational learning spillover within households. We use differences-in-differences estimators with ex-ante matching and find evidence that the programme had positive effects on students’ agricultural knowledge and adoption of good practices. The project also produced spillover effects in terms of improvements of household agricultural knowledge and food security. Overall, our results point to the importance of adapting the basic principles of farmer field schools to children.
Agricultural transformation and food and nutrition security in Ghana: Does farm production diversity (still) matter for household dietary diversity?
Olivier Ecker – Food Policy, 2018.
Africa south of the Sahara experienced an acceleration of economic growth in recent years that was accompanied by structural changes in national economies. Some African countries, such as Ghana, managed to utilize rapid growth for poverty reduction and improving food and nutrition security. Transformation of agriculture appears to have played an important role in this context. However, the linkages between agricultural transformation and food and nutrition security at the household level are not well understood. This article examines the linkage between farm production diversity and household dietary diversity in rural Ghana and how that linkage changed between 2005–06 and 2012–13. The empirical analysis employs a regression model that controls for region- and time-fixed effects. The estimation results suggest that farm production diversification, as well as household income growth, continues to be strongly associated with increased household dietary diversity. The analysis further explores the mechanism that underlies this production-consumption linkage by systematically modifying the basic model specification.
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