Agricultural Productivity and Household Welfare in Uganda: Examining the Relevance of Agricultural Improvement Interventions

Abstract

The role of agriculture in the transformation of a developing economy has been widely established in the development economics literature. This has informed public policy in developing countries to undertake various interventions to enhance agricultural productivity overtime. This chapter set out to analyze whether or not the various interventions to improve agricultural productivity in Uganda are actually serving their intended purpose of boosting productivity and if they are in turn improving the welfare of the participating households. Based on analysis from three waves of the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) panel data set for Uganda, the results suggest that government policies aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity are actually working. However, it was established that the uptake of these interventions is limited. Several constraints stand in the way to the achievement of their potential impact, which need to be addressed. For instance, it is critical to examine the implementation modalities for extension services provision with the view to ensuring their increased utilization. There should be intensification of information dissemination regarding the availability of the different technologies. Another critical ingredient in increasing agricultural technologies uptake is, the strengthening of farmer cooperatives as these have been found to address some of the binding constraints to the use of agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers.