Use of research enhances crop intensification - survey

By Julius Odeke

 A socio-economic survey carried by Action for Sustainable Intensification for Cropping Systems in Uganda (PASIC) has shown that there is need for Uganda's farmers to use research so as to enhance crop intensification so as to be able to feed the growing population.

The researchers who carried out the survey have therefore urged farmers and policy makers to use research work for evidence purposes in order to enhance crop intensification in the country.

Speaking in his office at Makerere University, the senior researcher at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Dr Swaibu Mbowa says, research helps experts to identify constraints that face individual farmers in their plot, at household levels, community, market, and at institutional policy levels.

He said PASIC, a project that operates in our country is here to generate evidence-based researches that will provide evidence of key characteristics and opportunities on crop intensification in Uganda, adding that, "PASIC works hand in hand with various partners like the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), EPRC, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The PASIC project co-coordinator, Dr Pamela Pali says, "One of the main outcome indicators for crop intensification is productivity, defined as amount of the crop harvested per unit of land.

In our case, we will look at the amount of kilograms farmers report to have harvested per acre.

Where we need to disaggregate along two factors:

Crop, which has two levels (rice and potatoes) and season, which also has two levels (first and second).

PASIC project was carried out a socio-economic survey in two regions, the South Western Highlands (Kabale, Kisoro and Kanungu) a zone for Irish potato production, and the Kyoga plains (Tororo, Bugiri and Butaleja) for rice production.

"In this study, we sought to determine the drivers of crop intensification, whether intensification improves production and productivity, and whether intensification affects well-being among the rice and Irish potato farmers," added Dr Pali.

She said data collection was conducted using direct structured interviews with the farmers.

A total of 902 farmers participated in this surveys. Purposive sampling strategy of including only potatoes and rice farmers was used initially after which and a random sample of 405 households in the Eastern region and 497 households in the Western region was generated.

In total, 172, 103, and 130 farmers participated in the survey from Tororo, Butaleja, and Bugiri districts respectively.

From South Western Uganda, 257, 157 and 83 farmers from Kabale, Kisoro and Kanungu districts participated in the survey. In total, 71 enumeration areas were sampled.

In a report, Crop Intensification in Rice and Potato Farming in Uganda:

Description of the Socio- Economic Data that was carried in December 2014, seen by a local newspaper jointly produced by PASIC, EPRC, MAAIF, IITA, and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) showed that in the West, parcels are relatively small, on average 0.6 acres, while they are on average 1.3 acres and this clearly already suggests much more land fragmentation in the West.

While for rice, land is often rented-in. This suggests a higher degree of commercialization in the rice growing sector however most farmers do not have a written statement of their use rights.

The report adds that, "Almost 50 percent of parcels in the East have used right restrictions, as opposed to only 16 percent of the parcels reported by potato farmers.

There is high market participation for both potatoes and rice, where 71 % of households report selling potato produce and 95 % of households report rice sales."

In this, most of the sales, however, occur immediately after the harvest which is the worst possible time to obtain favorable prices for produce. This finding presents substantial scope for policy action.

Dr Mbowa said, EPRC contributes a lot on policy studies, value chain analysis and development in the potato and rice sector by providing knowledge of the policy environment in the agricultural sector and in building capacity at MAAIF.

Meanwhile, at the same time, he added that the research centre expanding its ability to undertake rigorous evaluation of a number of interventions that involve all facets of the research work, but particularly on Socio-economic studies of Value chain studies, Institutional studies, Policy process studies, with the aim that its researchers will be leading many of these research activities by the end of the project.

"Our farmers need to know that they should not stop at producing these crops alone but should also ensure that they can add value addition to what they produce.  This is because they lose a lot in terms of finances once they don't add value addition to their products as consumers buy cheaply," Dr Mbowa said, adding that, "The output of these research works are made available to farmers so as to enhance their knowledge on crop production."

"The research that we collect helps to play an important role in the collective learning activities, being an active participant, while also ensuring that the evidence brought into these learning efforts is used in an appropriate manner," he added.

Dr Mbowa said the background information on policy will be used to study and analyze policies that hinder crop intensification as partners involved that include; MAAIF will formulate policies after enabling evidence has been generated to foster collective learning.

The value chain has gone into many phases such as; it has built a required capacity at the Ministry, shared information with other partners, and it has had a capacity building training in February.

In our value chain analysis, it has developed tools for data collection, pretested them, had an internal review of the tools from partners, finalized with the tools, and we are at the moment having an on-going training of enumerators on strengthening commodity value chain whereby in May, enumerators will be in the field to carry out research analysis in the two zones that include; eastern and western zones that comprise six districts in total.

The interesting part about the study is that it started with IFPRI doing social economic studies then IITA doing the agronomic studies and now EPRC will be doing the community survey inquiring from a number of farmers on behalf of the bigger part of the community.

Dr Mbowa says Uganda's population is growing and yet the demand of food too, is increasing, adding that "The only way out for feeding the growing population is through crop intensification since land is limited and does not increase or expand,". he added.

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