An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

86 CHAPTER 6
Table 6.5 Characteristics of households with high predicted demand for the potential host cultivar
Nakitembe, before and after effective insertion of resistance to black Sigatoka and weevils, with supporting
public investments
High demand for Nakitembe (N = 72)
Characteristic
Original
distribution
60 percent
resistance to BS
60 percent resistance to
BS and WE plus other
public investments
Percentage of decisionmakers who are men 62.39 61.67 48.01
Mean years of experience as a decisionmaker 9.94 10.96 9.79
Mean number of household members 7.77 8.10 7.42
Mean percentage of household members who are dependents 67.31 68.08 66.37
Mean percentage of household members who are women 51.61 53.54 50.00
Mean years of education of women in household 3.28 3.23 2.89
Mean years of education of men in household 4.12 4.27 3.56
Mean value of livestock (thousand Ush) 33.28 42.35 33.60
Mean income received, previous year (thousand Ush) 52.25 60.61 71.22
Percentage of households living in brick house 57.99 61.01 50.27
Mean farm area (acres) 5.75 6.04 5.14
Mean banana area (acres) 1.04 1.07 0.83
Mean percent of farmer area in bananas 34. 34. 34.
Mean hours to market 1.37 1.42 1.41
Mean distance to market (km) 1.87 1.96 1.71
Percentage of households that are net sellers of bananas 63.00 63.01 43.67*
Percentage of households that are net buyers of bananas 35.26 39.41 52.45*
Percentage of households in Southwest Region 3.25 2.72 1.13
Percentage of households in Central Region 81.34 82.10 82.63
Percentage of households in Eastern Region 15.42 15.18 16.25
Notes: * indicates statistically significant differences between means and/or distributions at the 10 percent level. The three columns
are (1) the original distribution of predicted values; (2) the distribution of predicted values with 60 percent effective resistance to black
Sigatoka (BS); and (3) the distribution of predicted values with 60 percent effective resistance to BS and weevils (WE), and support for
public investments. Investments are described in the text. See footnote 9, Chapter 5, for an explanation of measurement of yield losses.
rural development. Improvements in road
infrastructure or means of transportation
appear to have a smaller effect on the sensitivity
of total aggregate demand in the short
term.
Changes in clients before and after effective
gene insertion, with and without
supporting public investments, are presented
in Table 6.5. As expected, no substantive
differences in the prototype households are
identified when gene insertion alone is undertaken.
When gene insertion is accompanied
by other supporting investments, differences
in market participation emerge,
with a lower proportion of households participating
as net sellers and higher proportion
engaging in market transactions as net
buyers. This finding may reflect either cultivar
specialization or reductions in transactions
costs that lead households to cross the
threshold of autarky. Overall, changes in
prospective clients suggest that enhanced