Hiroyuki Takeshima

Dynamics of Transformation: Insights from an Exploratory Review of Rice Farming in the Kpong Irrigation Project

Agriculture in African South of the Sahara (SSA) can be transformed if the right public support is provided at the initial stage, and it can sustain itself once the enabling environment is put in place. Successes are also specific to the location of projects. In Ghana, interesting insights are obtained from the successful Kpong Irrigation Project (KIP), contrasted with other major irrigation projects in the country. Through an exploratory review, we describe how a productive system evolved in KIP and how public support for critical aspects (accumulation of crop husbandry knowledge, selection and supply of profitable varieties, and mechanization of land preparation) might have created a productive environment that the private sector could enter and fill in the market for credit, processing, mechanization of harvesting, and other institutional voids that typically have constrained agricultural transformation in the rest of SSA.

Typology of Farm Households and Irrigation Systems: Some Evidence from Nigeria

Irrigation is considered an important factor for agriculture and food security. Knowledge gaps, however, still exist with regard to how farmers in Africa south of Sahara, including Nigeria, are using irrigation. Given the diverse agroecological and socioeconomic environment in countries like Nigeria, understanding the diverse patterns of irrigation use and their associations with household characteristics is important in designing how irrigation can contribute to the agricultural transformation. This report summarizes the typology of farm households and irrigators in Nigeria. We apply a cluster analysis method to the Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS) — Integrated Survey on Agriculture data and various secondary data. We also compare the costs and inputs used across different irrigation crops, as reported in Nigeria. Findings indicate that the three major irrigation systems in Nigeria are (1) labor-intensive diverted stream irrigation of rice, (2) supplementary irrigation of coarse grains and legumes using groundwater, and (3) dry season irrigation of vegetables. Each crop is irrigated during a specific season and using a specific water source and irrigation system. Farmers’ choice of irrigation system tends to depend on many factors. For example, in the South, tractorization is often a necessary precondition for rice irrigation. In the North, intensive irrigation of rice and vegetables may make sense only if labor is cheap, whereas irrigation of sorghum and legumes is supplementary and may not affect farm households’ behaviors. Although more rigorous studies are needed in the future, observed patterns of irrigation use in Nigeria indicate that the policies aiming to raise agricultural productivity and to develop the value chains of key crops may need to be based on an understanding of why irrigation is used in specific ways in different systems and of what the key constraints in scaling up such systems in other locations are.

Agricultural Mechanization Patterns in Nigeria: Insights from Farm Household Typology and Agricultural Household Model Simulation

Anecdotal evidence indicates labor costs for farming in Nigeria are rising while levels of mechanization remain low. Information is scarce regarding the types of farm households that use mechanization in Nigeria and the potential demand for mechanization services among farmers. We apply cluster analysis to data from the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture project in Nigeria to identify associations between mechanization and farm household types. We then simulate an agricultural household model to assess the potential demand for mechanization services in southern Nigeria. We find the following: (1) current tractor use is associated with input-intensive crop production; (2) tractor use in northern Nigeria is associated with increased nonfarm income-earning activities rather than area expansion and is emerging, albeit slowly, across many farm household types; (3) tractor use in the South is highly concentrated among medium-scale rice producers; (4) many smallholder farmers growing staple crops in the South may be willing to pay for a mechanized land preparation service if the service were available at the same market price charged in other locations; and (5) using mechanization services, such farmers may cultivate a smaller area and allocate more labor for off-farm income-earning activities.

Importance of Rice Research and Development in Rice Seed Policies: Insights from Nigeria

First, this paper shows that rice varietal development in Nigeria has been lagging behind that of other developing countries in Asia and Latin America, due partly to insufficient investment in domestic rice R&D. The paper then illustrates using a household model simulation that impacts of certain policies, such as the seed subsidy, may be greater (smaller) if they are applied to good (poor) varieties. The paper concludes by discussing key policy implications and future research needs.

Is Access to Tractor Service a Binding Constraint for Nepali Terai Farmers

Using results from the three rounds of Nepal Living Standard Surveys (conducted in 1995, 2003, and 2010), this study empirically assesses whether access to rented tractors or custom hiring services is a binding constraint on the income growth of farm households in Nepal. Because four-wheel tractors of medium horsepower are still the primary suppliers of these tractor services, access to these services can be restricted. First, we investigated the determinants of the adoption of hired tractors as well as the intensity of their use (measured by real annual expenditures on renting tractors). Results suggest that the adoption and the intensity patterns are generally consistent with the conventional theory of the demand for agricultural mechanization, indicating that the supply of these services may be relatively efficient in meeting the demand. However, adoption is still affected by the presence of tractor owners within the same village district committee, indicating that the proximity to tractor service providers may still partly determine accessibility. This second point was more formally tested using matching estimators within the Terai region of Nepal. It was found that, on average, the supply of tractor services might have evolved to a relatively efficient level in the Terai so that those who benefited from renting in tractors generally had access to such services. However, for at least certain segments of farm households in the Terai, insufficient access to tractor services was still a binding constraint on the growth of farm household incomes. The policy implications of these findings are briefly discussed in the last section.

Determinants of chemical fertilizer use in Nepal: Insights based on price responsiveness and income effects

Although overall chemical fertilizer use has grown steadily in Nepal in the past two decades, much of that growth has occurred in the Terai agroecological belt while use has stagnated in the Hills and the Mountains regions. Differences in chemical fertilizer use intensity between the Terai and the latter regions are typically pronounced among medium-to-large-size farmers. Using three rounds of the Nepal Living Standards Survey as well as secondary data, we examine the determinants of inorganic fertilizer (urea and DAP) use, as well as the marginal income returns from fertilizer use at the farm-household level. Similarities in soil and climate between farm locale and Agriculture Research Station locale seem to increase demand for fertilizer — even after controlling for distance to those stations. Most important, demand for chemical fertilizer is affected by the real fertilizer price (particularly since the 2003 NLSS survey), but the price response is relatively weaker in the Hills and Mountains, suggesting that returns to fertilizer may be generally low in those regions, and that reducing fertilizer price through subsidies on fertilizer or transportation may not substantially increase fertilizer use. This is confirmed by assessment of the returns to chemical fertilizer use estimated through generalized propensity score matching and ordinary propensity score matching. The findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies as an instrument for stimulating chemical fertilizer use in Nepal, particularly among medium-to-large-scale farmers in the Hills, and point toward alternative measures like increased research and development into technologies that raise overall returns to chemical fertilizer.

Minor millets in Tamil Nadu, India: local market participation, on-farm diversity and farmer welfare

Although farmer market participation raises income, it often also reduces on-farm varietal diversity. However, for under-utilized crops like minor millets, market participation may actually encourage growers to increase on-farm diversity through better access to new varieties exchanged at local markets and higher returns from varieties already grown. We test this hypothesis in two different agro-ecological niches, the Plains and the Hills in southern India. Empirical results based on propensity score matching indicate that, in the less fertile dryland plains, market participation improved on-farm varietal diversity of minor millets and increased net revenues – albeit with insignificant welfare effects on farm households. On the other hand, in the fertile hill ecosystems, market development had no effect on varietal diversity. Insights from such a comparison could help design suitable policy interventions for on-farm conservation of under-utilized crops in their own agro-ecosystems through active stakeholder participation.

The Nigerian Rice Economy: Policy Options for Transforming Production, Marketing, and Trade

Over the past few decades, rice has become one of the leading food staples in Nigeria, surpassing cassava in food expenditures. However, rice production has failed to keep up with the growth in consumption, resulting in a growing dependence on imports. As the most populous country in Africa south of the Sahara—one out of every five people in the region is a Nigerian—Nigeria has risen to become the leading importer of rice worldwide. In fact, by 2011, about half of the rice consumed in Nigeria was imported (Table 1). Moreover, given that a large amount of rice in Nigeria is now being consumed by low-income households, rice has become an important component of household food security.

Will They Stay or Will They Go? The Political Influence of GM-Averse Importing Companies on Biosafety Decision Makers in Africa

Presumed but unproven trade risks are considered a significant factor in the reluctance of African countries to use potentially beneficial genetically modified (GM) crops. We model a threat from an importer to a local policy maker announcing an upcoming confined field trial of a GM crop as a dynamic game of incomplete information and illustrate our analysis with a stochastic simulation. The results show that provided the cost of threatening is small, and the cost of going out of the country is significant, the importer will threaten to go out and may effectively lower the probability of commercializing a GM crop.

Pressure Group Competition and GMO Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa - Insights from the Becker Model

It is widely acknowledged that pressure groups play influential roles with regard to decision making on the agricultural and food use of genetically-modified organisms (GMO) in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, there has been relatively minimal examination of when these lobbying efforts actually influence GMO policies, and how such influence changes when other exogenous constraints associated with GMO improve. Using the model of competition between pressure groups developed by Becker (1983), this paper shows that if anti-GMO lobbying appears to be working, it is likely because conditions in SSA are unfavorable to the introduction of GMO. This result is validated by a discussion of existing capacity constraints for the development, regulation, and dissemination of GMO in SSA countries, and of how these constraints may make conditions less favorable despite the reported potential benefits of GMO. The findings of this paper confirm the importance of relaxing capacity and institutional constraints, and suggest that these constraints should be addressed before considering a possible lack of political will for promising GMO in SSA countries. Political influence may not have as much of an impact on the slow adoption of GMO by SSA countries as insufficient scientific and institutional capacity.