Hello, and welcome to a new edition of the IFPR-Kampala’s USSP news and research digest! We are back from a short break so we offer you an extra long edition!
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.
In the news this week, we report on how the government rejects proposal to export sugarcane to Kenya and on how Uganda seeks to boost tea growing and exportation. We also report on the katikkiro of Buganda’s warning on the proposed coffee law and point to an interesting article in the Economist on beetles and flies becoming part of the agricultural food chain
Under research, we provide links to:
- Delivering more with less: subnational service provision in low capacity states
- Access to information, price expectations and welfare: The role of mobile phone adoption in Ethiopia
- The Role of Land Use Consolidation in Improving Crop Yields among Farm Households in Rwanda
- Gender in climate change, agriculture, and natural resource policies: insights from East Africa
- The impact of maize price shocks on household food security: Panel evidence from Tanzania
- What drives smallholder farmers’ willingness to pay for a new farm technology? Evidence from an experimental auction in Kenya
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Happy reading
News:
Smallholder farmers demand budget formulation process involvement
EABW
The farmers who converged in Kampala to discuss the recently passed Uganda 2019/20 budget, argue that on many occasions, their views are not represented in the final budget which affects them as smallholder farmers….. involving smallholder farmers in the budget formulation process will empower them to monitor the implementation of the budget at the grass root level.
Govt rejects proposal to export sugarcane to Kenya
Independent
Government is opposed to the proposal to export unprocessed raw materials such as sugar cane. The Trade, Industry and Co-operatives Minister, Amelia Kyambadde, stated this while presenting a statement to parliament on the issue of excess sugar cane in Busoga sub-region. She explained that the government discourages unprocessed exports so as to promote industrial growth through value addition.
Sierra Leone leader gives nod to army overseeing agriculture
Monitor
The visiting Sierra Leone president, Mr Julius Maada Bio, has backed President Museveni’s proposal to deploy soldiers in the agriculture sector. “The military should ensure discipline and expertise instead of preparing for war. Let us fight food insecurity because it does not only bring peace but also foreign exchange, which the country requires,” President Bio said.
European Union’s investment fund gets sh34b to boost agribusiness
New Vision
The European Union’s agribusiness fund dubbed Yield Uganda Investment Fund has received €8m (approximately sh34b) to support agro-processing industries by giving them low-interest loans and equities. The funding was given to the Fund by funding partners Open Society Foundations and FCA Investments.
Peanut innovation projects under way in Uganda
USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab of Peanut
Scientists, students and advisors working on Peanut Innovation Lab projects in Uganda met in late May for a launch meeting in Kampala to celebrate the start of work and share questions and insight about the direction of projects. The Lab currently has half a dozen projects that deal with peanut production, processing and consumption in Uganda.
Journalists and policy makers demand simple biotech messages
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications
For six years, Ugandan policymakers and journalists have expressed frustrations about the difficulty in appreciating scientific terminologies and messages presented about biotechnology. For this reason, the Uganda Biosciences Information Center brought together science and media practitioners to develop the first ever ‘dictionary’ that provides simple language translations of some of the terminologies used in biotechnology and biosciences.
Uganda seeks to boost tea growing and exportation
Observer
Ahead of the annual African Tea Convention in Kampala from June 26 to 28, the country looks set to revive the fortunes of the export cash crop. The three-day event, organised by the East African Tea Association and assisted by the Uganda Tea Association, is a global event aimed at promoting tea production and consumption all over the world. Uganda produces at least 80 million kilograms of tea annually, however the local market remains weak.
Katikiro warns on proposed coffee law
Independent
Charles Peter Mayiga, the Katikiro of Buganda Kingdom is pessimistic that once passed into law in its current form, the National Coffee Bill 2018 will dampen farmer’s commitment towards reviving coffee production. Last year, Uganda Coffee Development Authority-UCDA unveiled the National Coffee Bill 2018 that has since been adopted by cabinet. The bill seeks to regulate all on-farm and off farm activities in the coffee value chain by issuing licenses right from farmers to traders for purposes of enhancing quality of coffee in the country.
Earth observations help to monitor the impacts of cyclone Idai on people and food in eastern Africa
Agrilinks
Cyclone Idai left more than 1,000 people dead and thousands more missing, potentially affecting millions in Southern Africa. As emergency response and recovery efforts continue, another disaster is likely unfolding elsewhere on the continent: Idai pulled precipitation South, away from Eastern Africa, resulting in persistent dry conditions affecting crops at the start of the main growing season. That’s where NASA earth observations come in.
Del Monte’s Sh500m plant to feed Coca-Cola in Kenya
Business Daily
Thika-based pineapple juice maker Del Monte will next month open a Sh500 million processing plant within its Thika plantation and expand production portfolio to other fruits. The new facility will have a processing capacity of 60 tonnes of fresh fruits per year (avocados, mangoes and passion fruits) which will be sourced from Kiambu and neighbouring Murang’a County.
Severe weather in the U.S. is impacting global food security
Food Tank
Across the key agricultural states in the Midwestern United States, crop plantings were delayed because of severe weather including heavy rain and flooding. This delay significantly impacts corn and soybean acreage; both crops play a major role in the global agricultural economy and have triggered a spike in commodity prices, indicating the impacts of climate change on food price volatility and potential food insecurity.
Beetles and flies are becoming part of the agricultural food chain
Economist
Some visionaries hope that insects will play a big role in future human diets. Insects are efficient converters of food into body mass. And in some parts of the world they are, indeed, eaten already. Well, maybe. But it will take some serious marketing to persuade consumers, in the West at least, that fricasseed locusts or termiteburgers are the yummy must-haves of 21st-century cuisine.
Sixteen companies rethinking food and beverage packaging
Food Tank
The United States generates almost 80 million tons of packaging waste each year, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. When landfilled or incinerated, this waste pollutes the environment and poses health risks to humans and wildlife. The food industry is largely responsible for this growing packaging problem.
New index helps countries boost food systems sustainability
Food Tank
A new index developed by Bioversity International aims to build better, more resilient food systems and improve diets. By tracking how sustainably countries use their agricultural biodiversity—or agrobiodiversity—the Agrobiodiversity Index supports actors within food systems to make better decisions to achieve sustainability and resilience.
Research Reports, Policy Briefs and Discussion Papers
Smallholder households: distinct segments, different needs
CGAP
Using data from CGAP’s national surveys, three segments emerged – Subsisting, Commercializing, and Diversifying smallholder households – according to their crop and livestock sales, amount of agricultural land, and smallholder livelihood profile: (i) the Commercializing segment sees their agricultural activities as a business. They’re the key market for financial solutions related to agricultural goals; (ii) the Diversifying segment has a wider range of income sources and they generally value a generic portfolio of financial services; (iii) serving the more vulnerable Subsisting segment at scale calls for partnerships, technology, and comprehensive approaches to financial and nonfinancial services.
Research
Delivering more with less: subnational service provision in low capacity states
Kyle, J. & Resnick, D. – Studies in Comparative International Development, 2019
In developing countries, low state capacity frequently is blamed for poor and uneven service delivery. Yet, since state capacity manifests unevenly across space and sectors, identifying which elements of capacity are more likely to enhance service delivery is not straightforward. We examine how subnational variation in capacity affects access to agricultural extension in rural Nepal. We explore six dimensions of state capacity using original household survey data and interviews with local bureaucrats. We find that local knowledge and motivation of bureaucrats play a significant role in shaping service access. By contrast, traditional capacity indicators—including resources, professionalization, and autonomy—matter surprisingly little. These findings suggest that bureaucrats working with fewer but more motivated staff who spend more time in a district are more likely to facilitate citizens’ access to agricultural extension. Placebo tests add confidence that relationships are not driven by unobservables. Scholarship on state capacity traditionally has been unable to measure capacity disaggregated by geography and sector, and, as a result, has struggled to link empirically different elements of capacity with service delivery. This paper begins to address this gap and in doing so, offers broader implications for the dynamics of rural development.
Access to information, price expectations and welfare: The role of mobile phone adoption in Ethiopia
MG Haile, T Wossen, M Kalkuhl – Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2019
Using household survey data from rural Ethiopia, this study explores the role of mobile telephony in smallholder farmers’ price expectation formations. The empirical findings suggest that farmers who own mobile phones and who reside closer to markets make smaller price forecasting errors. The beneficial effect of mobile phones is stronger for households that reside farther away from grain markets, indicating that mobile telephony provides information that at least partially compensates location-disadvantaged farmers. Holding all else constant, mobile phone ownership is associated with about a 30% decrease in the conditional mean of a smallholder’s price prediction error, whereas an additional kilometer from nearby grain markets reduces the expected prediction error by about 10%. The results are robust across different econometric estimators as well as the use of alternative measurements of price forecasting error. Our simulation analysis shows that accurate information about grain price developments could save a significant welfare loss for smallholders. Depending on their income levels, the analysis hints that smallholder farmers would be willing to pay between 7% and 20% of their income to improve the price signal, in other words, to avoid uncertainty on producer prices. Our work emphasizes an alternative way to deal with price volatility and improve farmers’ welfare that focuses on improving access to information rather than reducing volatility per se.
The Role of Land Use Consolidation in Improving Crop Yields among Farm Households in Rwanda
Pia Nilsson – Journal of Development Studies, 2019.
Relative to other developing regions, the role of land consolidation in increasing crop yields is poorly understood in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the role of land use consolidation on agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Household-level data are used to estimate a fixed-effects model with matched control groups to mitigate selection bias. The study finds a positive association between land use consolidation and crop yields, but only among farm households with landholdings greater than one hectare, which is well above the average farm size in Rwanda. Findings also point to the importance of non-organic fertilisers and irrigation as there appear to be significant benefits associated with further increases in their use among the consolidated farms.
Gender in climate change, agriculture, and natural resource policies: insights from East Africa
Edidah L. Ampaire, Mariola Acosta, Sofia Huyer, Ritah Kigonya, Perez Muchunguzi, Rebecca Muna, Laurence Jassogne – Climatic Change, 2019.
Gender mainstreaming was acknowledged as an indispensable strategy for achieving gender equality at the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Since then, governments have made substantial efforts in developing gender-responsive policies and implementation strategies. The advent of climate change and its effects, which have continued to impact rural livelihoods and especially food security, demands that gender mainstreaming efforts are accelerated. Effective gender mainstreaming requires that gender is sufficiently integrated in policies, development plans, and implementation strategies, supported by budgetary allocations. This study analyzes the extent of gender integration in agricultural and natural resource policies in Uganda and Tanzania, and how gender is budgeted for in implementation plans at district and lower governance levels. A total of 155 policy documents, development plans, and annual action plans from national, district, and sub-county/ward levels were reviewed. In addition, district and sub-county budgets for four consecutive financial years from 2012/2013 to 2015/2016 were analyzed for gender allocations. Results show that whereas there is increasing gender responsiveness in both countries, (i) gender issues are still interpreted as “women issues,” (ii) there is disharmony in gender mainstreaming across governance levels, (iii) budgeting for gender is not yet fully embraced by governments, (iii) allocations to gender at sub-national level remain inconsistently low with sharp differences between estimated and actual budgets, and (iv) gender activities do not address any structural inequalities. We propose approaches that increase capacity to develop and execute gender-responsive policies, implementation plans, and budgets.
The impact of maize price shocks on household food security: Panel evidence from Tanzania
Robert Rudolf – Food Policy, 2019
Using three waves (2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13) of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey, this study investigates the impact of maize price shocks on household food security. Between 2008/09 and 2012/13, calorie intake stagnated for urban households, yet sharply deteriorated for rural households. The latter was driven by a significant decline in the consumption of the major staple maize which showed strongest price hikes among all major food items. Fixed-effects regressions indicate a clear negative relationship between maize prices and average household energy intake. Almost all population groups were found to be negatively affected by maize price shocks, with rural landless households being the most vulnerable group. In particular, a 50 percent rise in maize prices decreases caloric intake for rural (urban) households on average by 4.4 (5.4) percent, and for rural landless households by 12.6 percent. Results further indicate that subsistence agriculture can act as an effective strategy to insure against food price volatility.
What drives smallholder farmers’ willingness to pay for a new farm technology? Evidence from an experimental auction in Kenya
Hira Channa, Amy Z. Chen, Patricia Pina, Jacob Ricker-Gilbert, Daniel Stein – Food Policy, 2019.
We use an incentive compatible experimental auction to measure demand for a new agricultural technology, a triple layered hermetic storage bag. When used properly, the bag creates an airtight seal that reduces storage loss from insect pests and neutralizes aflatoxin contamination in stored grain. We find that demand for this new technology is highly elastic (4.3) and that the wholesaler could increase profit by lowering the price. We also find that farmers’ valuation for the bag is not significantly different based on the medium through which information about it is communicated to them, either text, audio or video messages. This suggests that practitioners should use the cheapest option for disseminating information, which is text messaging in this context. In addition, we find that farmers who have prior awareness of the bag are willing to pay 20% more on average than those previously unaware of it. In total, the highly elastic demand for the improved bags, along with the fact that prior awareness of the bag leads to higher willingness to pay, suggests that a one-time price subsidy for the new technology could spur demand and increase future adoption.
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