NERICA Upland Rice: Seeds of Change for Female-Headed Households in Uganda?

Abstract

Recognizing that the adoption of new agricultural technology has different effects on different types of households and social actors, this study examines how female-headed households growing New Rice for Africa (NERICA) upland rice in Hoima District, Uganda, compare with male-headed NERICA grower households with respect to the production, productivity, and marketing of the crop. We show that NERICA has become an important cash income earner for both household categories, which obtain similar levels of productivity, and identify factors that seem to have helped make it accessible to female-headed households: the perception of rice not solely as a commercial crop but also a food crop, a ready local market, and good performance without agro-chemical inputs. In spite of evidence that female-headed households are constrained by inferior access to land and by lower de facto sales price, we argue that NERICA provides opportunities for these households that may contribute toward more equitable production, productivity, and marketing conditions between female- and male-headed households.