Abstract
In East Africa where a drastic improvement in food security is an urgent need, rice, a non-traditional crop in most of countries in the region, has emerged as an important food crop that could extend the Green Revolution to the region following the introduction of New Rice for Africa (NERICA) in the early 2000s. Using data collected through a nationwide survey, this paper examines the possibility of rice green revolution by estimating the technical efficiency (TE) of rainfed rice farmers in Uganda and simulates how unfavorable climate changes affect it. The estimated stochastic frontier yield function showed that the mean TE was 65% for lowland and 60% for upland, and that the potential yield of rainfed rice cultivation was as high as 3 t·ha-1. However, the stochastic simulation of rainfall and rice yield revealed that unfavorable climate changes could erase the high potential in crop yield. Rainfed rice cultivation could be a leading sector for realizing Green Revolution in East Africa. It plays a critical role in this process to improve rice farmers’ TE, which is lower in the region than in Asia. Worsening climatic conditions, if occur, make this need even more imperative.
Highlights
A Green Revolution has long been awaited in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), in East Africa where a drastic improvement in food security is an urgent need
Because the irrigated lowland area in the country is estimated to be 2000 ha [5], rainfed rice takes more than 95% of the area planted with rice, even if two crops could be planted per year in all the irrigated area
As our frontier yield function revealed, the unit yield of rainfed rice cultivation is significantly affected by rainfall conditions
Summary
A Green Revolution has long been awaited in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), in East Africa where a drastic improvement in food security is an urgent need. The agro-climatic, ecological and geographical conditions of SSA, provide a vast amount of land for rainfed rice cultivation in many inland valleys in the hydromorphic valley bottoms and the lower parts of the valley slope adjacent to the hydromorphic edge [5]. It is in this context that NERICA, which fits wetland as well as dry land conditions, is welcomed as an agent to promote a Green Revolution in rainfed rice cultivation
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