An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

104 CHAPTER 7
fertility management for land allocated to
banana production. Education of the production
decisionmaker is positively related
with the extent of mulching technology. As
in the case of the discrete decision, household
size positively influences use of soil
fertility management practices. As already
pointed out, in the presence of a combination
of labor and output market imperfections,
it is not clear which market imperfections
are implied by the results. Older
farmers are likely to allocate a smaller
share of their banana groves to manure
because of their time preferences (Shiferaw
and Holden 1998). Other household demographic
characteristics (such as gender and
dependency ratio), as well as livestock
wealth, do not appear important in the
extent of soil fertility management. Similarly,
exogenous income was only significant
in manure application. This finding
could be feasibly explained by the fact that
manure, unlike mulching, requires expensive
implements, such as wheelbarrows
and spades, to implement the technology,
which may discourage a household with
liquidity constraints from extensively using
the technology.
As expected, the estimates on the variable
price-wage ratio indicate that the greater
the return to banana production relative to
the opportunity cost of labor, the higher the
use of fertility-enhancing practices, which
require labor. This is a key finding. Improved
banana management practices are
labor intensive, and higher costs of hired
labor relative to the banana market prices
will have a negative effect on the intensity
of management. Thus rural development
trends, such as urbanization, that increase
the opportunity cost of labor are likely to
have negative consequences on soil fertility
management. After controlling for market
prices, the distance from the paved roads
and indicators of market access in general
are not significant at conventional levels in
both technologies, suggesting that general
increase in market access has no effect on
the extent of banana management using
mulch or manure.
Results also indicate that social capital
is an important determinant of the extent of
soil management in banana production.
Household density of membership in associations
was associated with the extent of
mulching and manure application but with
opposite signs. The finding that household
membership density in associations influences
the extent of mulching but does not
influence the probability of use is interesting.
The result suggests that this aspect of
social capital operates through various complementary
mechanisms to influence use of
this technology. One possible interpretation
is that, in addition to information, membership
density may work through peer pressure.
Mwakubo et al. (2004) also found that
in the marginal areas of Kenya, membership
density increases intensity of soil conservation
technologies. On the contrary, estimation
results indicate that increase in the
number of household members joining associations
is associated with reduced demand
for manure. Perhaps this result implies
that more household members joining
associations might reduce labor available
for crop production, generating consequences
that might exceed the positive benefits
for more labor-intensive techniques.
Manure application by Ugandan banana
producers involves gathering and transporting
heavy animal manure from the kraal to
plots or composting kitchen residues in pits.
This effort may require additional labor
compared to mulching with crop residues.
Households in villages where norms of
decisionmaking in associations are participatory
and where leaders are wealthier or
better educated than most group members
are likely to apply management practices to
a larger share of mats in their banana groves.
This finding is consistent with the work of
Rogers (1995) and later Isham (2000) that
village leaders with capacity to network