STRATEGIES TO INCREASE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND REDUCE LAND DEGRADATION: EVIDENCE FROM UGANDA

This paper estimates a structural econometric model of household decisions regarding income strategies, participation in programs and organizations, crop choices, land management, and labor use, and their implications for agricultural production and land degradation; based upon a survey of over 450 households and their farm plots in Uganda. The results generally support the Boserupian model of population-induced agricultural intensification, but do not support the "more people-less erosion" hypothesis, with population pressure found to contribute to erosion in the densely populated highlands. Agricultural technical assistance programs have location-specific impacts on agricultural production and land degradation, contributing to higher value of crop production in the lowlands, but to soil erosion in the highlands. By contrast, NGO programs focusing on agriculture and environment are helping to reduce erosion, but have mixed impacts on production. We find little evidence of impact of access to markets, roads and credit, land tenure or title on agricultural intensification and crop production, though road access appears to contribute to land degradation in the highlands. Education increases household incomes, but also reduces crop production in the lowlands. We do not find evidence of a poverty-land degradation trap, while poverty has mixed impacts on agricultural production: smaller farms obtain higher crop production per hectare, while households with fewer livestock have crop production. These findings suggest that development of factor markets can improve agricultural efficiency. Several other factors that contribute to increased value of crop production, without significant impacts on land degradation, include specialized crop production, livestock and nonfarm income strategies, and irrigation. In general, the results imply that the strategies to increase agricultural production and reduce land degradation must be location-specific, and that there are few "win-win" opportunities to simultaneously increase production and reduce land degradation.Agricultural productivity, land degradation, agricultural development strategies, Uganda, farm size-productivity, Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis,

Agronomic effectiveness of unacidulated and partially acidulated Minjingu rockphosphates on Stylosanthes guianensis

The majority of soils in Africa are P-deficient, but the high cost of conventional, water-soluble P fertilisers limits their use by resource-poor farmers. Rockphosphates are a low-cost alternative. The relative agronomic effectiveness of unacidulated (RP), 25 percent partially acidulated (PARP25), 50 percent partially acidulated (PARP50) Minjingu rockphosphate and triple superphosphate (TSP) was evalauted at rates of 0-80 kg/ha P on stylo (Stylosanthes guianensis) on an Ultisol in the Ethiopian highlands. The fertilisers were applied once and their effects were followed for 4 consecutive harvests. Stylo dry matter (DM) yields were below 3 t/ha at each cut without applied P and reached as high as 4.8 t/ha when P was applied. Over all 4 cuts, RP was 100 percent, PARP25 was 89 percent and PARP50 was 103 percent as effective as TSP in increasing stylo herbage yields. The corresponding relative responses in P uptake were 103, 79 and 92 percent for RP, PARP25 and PARP50, respectively. The substitution rates for herbage yields were 100 percent for RP, 79 percent for PARPP25 and 106 percent for PARP50 while those for P uptake were 106 percent for RP, 62 percent for PARP25 and 85 percent for PARP50. Significant (P<0.05) effects of P on stylo DM and P uptake were observed at all harvests. It is concluded that raw Minjingu rockphosphate is highly effective on stylo in these soils. This rockphosphate could be used to increase forage production for increased and sustainable crop-livestock productivity on the P-deficient Ultisols

Strategies for sustainable land management and poverty reduction in Uganda:

"The government of Uganda, with help from its development partners, is designing and implementing policies and strategies to address poverty, land degradation, and declining agricultural productivity. Land degradation, especially soil erosion and depletion of soil nutrients, is widespread in Uganda and contributes to declining productivity, which in turn increases poverty. The report has four major objectives: (1) to examine the causes of land degradation in Uganda; (2) to identify the determinants of income strategies and land management decisions and their impacts on agricultural productivity, soil erosion, and household income; (3) to assess the trade-offs and complementarities among these different objectives; and (4) to analyze the soil nutrient depletion in eastern Uganda to determine the factors that influence it." from Text

Assessment of the Small-scale Food Processing Subsector in Tanzania and Uganda

Assessment of the Small-scale Food Processing Subsector in Tanzania and Ugand

Volunteer experiences and perceptions of the informed consent process: Lessons from two HIV clinical trials in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Informed consent as stipulated in regulatory human research guidelines requires that a volunteer is well-informed about what will happen to them in a trial. However researchers are faced with a challenge of how to ensure that a volunteer agreeing to take part in a clinical trial is truly informed. We conducted a qualitative study among volunteers taking part in two HIV clinical trials in Uganda to find out how they defined informed consent and their perceptions of the trial procedures, study information and interactions with the research team. METHODS: Between January and December 2012, 23 volunteers who had been in the two trials for over 6 months, consented to be interviewed about their experience in the trial three times over a period of nine months. They also took part in focus group discussions. Themes informed by study research questions and emerging findings were used for content analysis. RESULTS: Volunteers defined the informed consent process in terms of their individual welfare. Only two of the volunteers reported having referred during the trial to the participant information sheets given at the start of the trial. Volunteers remembered the information they had been given at the start of the trial on procedures that involved drawing blood and urine samples but not information about study design and randomisation. Volunteers said that they had understood the purpose of the trial. They said that signing a consent form showed that they had consented to take part in the trial but they also described it as being done to protect the researcher in case a volunteer later experienced side effects. CONCLUSION: Volunteers pay more attention during the consent process to procedures requiring biological tests than to study design issues. Trust built between volunteers and the research team could enhance the successful conduct of clinical trials by allowing for informal discussions to identify and review volunteers' perceptions. These results point to the need for researchers to view informed consent as a process rather than an event

Awareness and Need for Knowledge of Health and Safety among Dairy Farmers Interviewed in Uganda

Introduction: Safe working conditions are essential for healthy living and for ensuring food security among farmers and farm communities in developing countries. There is limited research on this topic, and documentation is essential to understand and change patterns of human health and safety. Methods: In May 2014, six male and female farmers on four dairy farms in Uganda and a female veterinarian were interviewed about their awareness and attitudes to agricultural risk factors, health, and safety. In addition, transect walks were conducted on the four dairy farms. Results: The dairy farmers reported health and safety concerns, e.g., diarrhea, coughs, fever, cuts while using machetes in plantations, bruises when handling animals, and dizziness and poisoning symptoms from using different agrochemicals, and considered these an occupational hazard. The most important topic mentioned was the use of agrochemicals and drugs on livestock. The farmers spray their animals with insecticides to prevent ticks, lice, tsetse flies, and other biting nuisance flies, using a backpack or hand sprayer. Spraying is conducted without personal protection equipment, which is considered too expensive and difficult to obtain. The farmers reported that they usually feel dizzy, vomit, and have pain and a burning feeling in their face and eyes after spraying. The symptoms are sometimes so severe that they require treatment. In such cases, the farmers buy medication without a prescription at the local drugstore, where the storekeeper often has limited or no knowledge of agrochemicals or drugs except for dosage. Agricultural health and safety training in the region is non-existent, and the farmers expressed a need and desire for improvements in this area. Conclusion: The level of knowledge and awareness of agricultural health and safety risks, disease, and injury prevention among the Ugandan dairy farmers interviewed was low. The farmers mentioned few agriculture-related complaints, injuries, or diseases except poisoning from using agrochemicals. Training on health and safety in Ugandan agriculture is urgently needed

Reasons for participating in a randomised clinical trial: The volunteers' voices in the COSTOP trial in Uganda.

INTRODUCTION: The reasons why research participants join clinical trials remains an area of inquiry especially in low and middle income countries. METHODS: We conducted exit interviews with participants who took part in a trial which aimed to evaluate whether long term prophylaxis with cotrimoxazole can be safely discontinued among adults who have been stabilised on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Participants were all reported to be stable on ART and had been participating in the trial for between 12 and 36 months; at the end of the trial participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. One of the objectives of the exit interview was to find out what motivated the participants to join the research. RESULTS: Participants gave personal reasons for joining the trial, frequently linked to their health and well-being as well as reduction of pill burden. CONCLUSION: We conclude that underlying reasons for joining clinical trials may extend beyond or can be different from the rationale given to the participants before enrolment by the research team. The reasons that motivate enrolment to clinical trials and research in general require further investigation in different settings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN44723643

Management of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt: Evidence from impact of adoption of cultural control practices in Uganda

Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) is an important emerging and non-curable infectious plant pathogen in sub-Saharan Africa that can cause up to 100% yield loss, negatively impacting sustainable access to food and income to more than 100 million banana farmers. This study disentangles adopters into partial and full adopters to investigate the factors that are relevant to sustain the adoption process of BXW control practices and quantifies the impact of adopting the practices. Data from a randomly selected sample of 1200 banana farmers in Uganda where the disease is endemic was used. A multinomial logit model was used to determine the factors affecting adoption of control practices and augmented inverse probability weighting was employed to estimate the impacts of adoption on banana productivity and sales. Results show that training a woman farmer and having diverse sources of information about BXW control practices increased adoption of the control practices and reduced the disease incidences. Farmers who adopted all the recommended control practices achieved significantly the highest values of banana production and sales. We conclude that improving information access through farmers’ preferred communication channels, having women-inclusive trainings, and a combination of cultural practices are effective ways for sustaining adoption of the control practices

Strategic targeting of development policies to a complex region: A GIS-based stratification applied to Uganda

It is often the case that national policies are not necessarily suitable at lower administrative levels due to the spatial complexity of natural and socio-economic resources within a country. That complexity of resources can be resolved by spatial modeling of natural and socio-economic variation. We propose a new GIS-based stratification algorithm to demarcate homogenous development domains at national level and applied that algorithm to Uganda. Based on that stratification, we assembled various spatial information to assess comparative advantages and disadvantages of these development domains for potential pathways of economic development. We expect that our stratification strategy may help policy makers and regional planners to target development investments more efficiently towards sustainable agriculture in Uganda