An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

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158 CHAPTER 11 in cooking, brewing of local beer, roasting, or sweet desserts (snacks). A common set of biophysical pressures constrain banana productivity in the region. In both Tanzania and Uganda, drastically declining yields were reported from the 1970s to the early 1990s, caused by soil fertility problems, weevils, nematodes, Fusarium wilt, and black Sigatoka. Since then (and not studied here), bacteria wilt has beset banana plantations in the region. Other economic factors pose challenges for raising banana productivity and encouraging the product commercialization that will lead to increased rural income. Continuous propagation in banana groves implies high labor demands—in the face of rising opportunity costs for labor—to manage soils and mats effectively. Perennial production means that bananas often serve a key role in meeting food consumption or cash needs, particularly for poor families, but commercialization is inhibited by the bulk and perishable nature of the product. Many bananas are sold at the farm gate, with high and variable market margins. Although there is potential for product diversification through processing, a negligible percentage of production is now processed. The prospects for exports are modest, given the preferences of world consumers for dessert bananas, and the competition. Against this common backdrop, each country has pursued its own strategy for resolving the challenges. The Ugandan National Banana Research Programme (NBRP) has pursued a three-pronged approach to combating biotic constraints to banana production. In addition to assembly and evaluation of local and foreign germplasm, including hybrids from FHIA and IITA, the program has undertaken breeding for resistance by crossing and genetic transformation, combined with tissue culture propagation of clean planting material. Elite highland bananas have also been propagated and distributed to farmers. The bestyielding highland bananas have proved sterile and hence not amenable to conventional breeding. As a consequence, genetic transformation is a major option for attaining host-plant resistance. Related research is under way on a range of varieties that represent the diversity among genomes and clone sets in the region, in order to retain the enduse attributes appreciated by consumers. The third element of NBRP’s approach is the development and recommendation of banana management practices, consisting of both natural resource (soil and water) and sanitation techniques. Like the national research program in Uganda, the program in Tanzania has brought in a large number and wide variety of materials for evaluation under local conditions. In the context of the KCDP project, the governments of Tanzania and Belgium then diffused relatively large amounts of new planting material in Kagera Region, including exotics and hybrids. Farmer participation in evaluation and testing, as well as their central role in supplying planting material, is a salient feature of the traditional production system and is reflected in the strategies of both NARO and ARDI. Tanzanian researchers have documented the role that farmers have played historically in locating sources of clean planting material—often over great distances—over the past half-century recalled by farmers in personal interviews. Various farmer-based systems have served as a means of efficient dissemination of materials, albeit on small scales in specific locations in Uganda. Not only the material, but also the information about management practices appears to diffuse primarily through farmer-based channels, although roughly half of farmers in Uganda rely on formal sources in addition to other farmers. Of formal sources, government extension figures most prominently. Linked by language, culture, and history, banana growers in Tanzania and Uganda are separated by a national border and live in different administrative and political jurisdictions. In both the Ugandan and Tanzanian subdomains, roughly one-
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH POLICY 159 quarter of household heads are women. Both men and women participate in cultivar choice, final production decisions, sales, and beer making, although there seems to be a more pronounced gender division of labor in some tasks in Tanzania. Participation in banana markets is patchy, underscoring the semisubsistence nature of banana production for many households in the region. The rate of commercial sales appears much higher in the highlands of Tanzania than in those of Uganda, and in both countries, the highlands regions are much more commercially oriented than the lowlands. In Uganda, statistical tests confirm that expected yield losses from black Sigatoka differ by elevation, with the geographical focus of the disease in the lowlands. Consistent with researchers’ observations, cooking quality and yield (bunch size) are the characteristics that growers consider most important. Endemic varieties are considered superior for cooking, and hybrids are rated higher for bunch size and resistance to weevils, though perceived differences for disease are not statistically significant in Uganda. Hybrids are rated more highly across all attributes than endemic types in Tanzania. As signaled by the Tanzanian authors in this report, disease pressures were so great in some areas of Kagera Region that farmers lost their endemic varieties entirely, leaving no point of reference. Differences in dissemination strategies, biotic pressures, farmer perceptions, and the geographical scale of the area studied probably contribute to the stark differences in adoption rates between Uganda and Tanzania. In Uganda, the percentage of farmers using hybrids is negligible when considered across the full expanse of banana-growing areas, but within targeted villages, use rates are high. In Tanzania, the 20 varieties most frequently grown in Kagera Region include one of the FHIA hybrids, and roughly one in five farmers has planted banana hybrids. Nearly all farmers grow exotic farmers’ cultivars. The rate of use of recommended natural resource and mat management practices is much higher in Uganda than the rate of use of improved materials, although the labor intensity of these practices means that typically, only a portion of the average plantation is tended using the practice. The focal role of farmers in planting material systems, emphasized in the chapters on banana improvement strategies in both countries, is confirmed by the baseline data. In Uganda, there are large numbers of exchanges of planting material of all types, but more so for nonendemic bananas, including hybrids bought and sold for cash. Most planting materials are exchanged without money, in part because initial dissemination by KCDP was free of charge. The fact that Ugandan farmers traversed an average of 15 km for new planting material, compared to less than 3 km in Tanzania, indicates that high fixed costs of transaction may also be impeding adoption in Uganda. The application of econometric models supports several general conclusions related to adoption of existing and emerging technologies. First, findings demonstrated the potentially pro-poor application of transgenic cooking varieties and showed that the choice of host cultivar for trait insertion is likely to have social consequences. Simulations illustrate the extent to which supporting public investments in education, market infrastructure, and extension will augment farmer demand for new planting material. The demand for planting material of the cooking varieties that are potential host varieties for gene insertion varies according to the characteristics of households, farms, and markets and the attributes of varieties. In particular, farmers also demand material with lower expected yield losses to black Sigatoka and weevils—traits targeted for genetic transformation. Second, the evidence confirms that adoption of FHIA hybrids reduces the vulnerability of Tanzanian households to yield losses from pests and diseases. For farmers with few nonfarm sources of income, reducing production risk can smooth both con-
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An Economic Assessment of Banana Ge
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Contents List of Tables List of Fig
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Tables 3.1 Net marketing margins pe
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TABLES vii 6.5 Characteristics of h
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Figures 2.1 Sample domain: Elevatio
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Acknowledgments The International F
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SUMMARY xiii en’s education--and
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Acronyms and Abbreviations AGT ARDI
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Part I. Research Methods
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4 CHAPTER 1 practices in Africa are
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6 CHAPTER 1 periment station. Not a
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8 CHAPTER 1 niques (based on seed p
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10 CHAPTER 1 Cohen, J. I., and R. P
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CHAPTER 2 Elements of the Conceptua
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14 CHAPTER 2 ples of adoption disco
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16 CHAPTER 2 transgenic bananas cur
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18 CHAPTER 2 Figure 2.2 Sites sampl
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20 CHAPTER 2 Figure 2.4 Time profil
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Part II. Research Context
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here> 1near 3. 26 CHAPTER 3 major f
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28 CHAPTER 3 disease, which affects
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here> 1near 3. 30 CHAPTER 3 Table 3
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32 CHAPTER 3 Table 3.2 Banana produ
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34 CHAPTER 3 would only be able to
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36 CHAPTER 3 Nkonya, E., J. Pender,
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here> 1near 4. 38 CHAPTER 4 cash ne
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40 CHAPTER 4 Figure 4.1 Introductio
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42 CHAPTER 4 Research Introductions
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44 CHAPTER 4 Table 4.2 Names of the
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46 CHAPTER 4 The most widely used m
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48 CHAPTER 4 Ortíz, R., and D. Vuy
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here> 5.3near here>
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52 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.4 Percentage o
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54 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.7 Percentage o
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here> 9near 5. here> 10near 5. 56 C
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here> 12near 5. 58 CHAPTER 5 Table
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60 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.14 Number and
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here> 18near 5. 62 CHAPTER 5 Table
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64 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.20 Average num
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66 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.23 Percentage
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68 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.26 Average dis
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70 CHAPTER 5 considerably higher in
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Part III. Economic Assessment of Te
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76 CHAPTER 6 The agricultural house
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78 CHAPTER 6 grow, but have grown i
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80 CHAPTER 6 Table 6.2 Summary stat
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82 CHAPTER 6 tion. More frequent vi
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84 CHAPTER 6 Table 6.4 Prototype ho
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86 CHAPTER 6 Table 6.5 Characterist
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88 CHAPTER 6 References Cameron, A.
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90 CHAPTER 7 by-products of other f
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here> 1near 7. 92 CHAPTER 7 Table 7
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94 CHAPTER 7 ity in the two technol
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96 CHAPTER 7 Table 7.2 Definition o
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98 CHAPTER 7 The direct link betwee
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100 CHAPTER 7 Table 7.3 Factors inf
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102 CHAPTER 7 tive sign but are onl
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104 CHAPTER 7 fertility management
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106 CHAPTER 7 participatory decisio
Page 124 and 125: 108 CHAPTER 7 Stevens, J. P. 2002.
Page 126 and 127: 110 CHAPTER 8 defined as a function
Page 128 and 129: 112 CHAPTER 8 inputs or implement c
Page 130 and 131: 114 CHAPTER 8 Crop output is determ
Page 132 and 133: 116 CHAPTER 8 Table 8.1 Variable de
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Page 136 and 137: 120 CHAPTER 8 Table 8.4 Production
Page 138 and 139: 122 CHAPTER 8 during the SOM decomp
Page 140 and 141: 124 CHAPTER 8 Supplementary Tables
Page 142 and 143: 126 CHAPTER 8 Table 8A.3 Production
Page 144 and 145: 128 CHAPTER 8 Thomas, G. W. 1982. E
Page 146 and 147: 130 CHAPTER 9 (Nkuba et al. 1999).
Page 148 and 149: 132 CHAPTER 9 be reduced through la
Page 150 and 151: 134 CHAPTER 9 Table 9.2 Summary sta
Page 152 and 153: 136 CHAPTER 9 Table 9.3 Coefficient
Page 154 and 155: 138 CHAPTER 9 Table 9.4 Mean compar
Page 156 and 157: 140 CHAPTER 9 References Anandajaya
Page 158 and 159: 142 CHAPTER 10 Table 10.1 Ugandan c
Page 160 and 161: 144 CHAPTER 10 (Kangire and Rutherf
Page 162 and 163: 146 CHAPTER 10 Table 10.4 Predomina
Page 164 and 165: here> 7near 10. 148 CHAPTER 10 Tabl
Page 166 and 167: 150 CHAPTER 10 Table 10.8 Present v
Page 168 and 169: 152 CHAPTER 10 In terms of specific
Page 171: Part IV. Conclusions
Page 176 and 177: 160 CHAPTER 11 sumption and income
Page 178 and 179: 162 CHAPTER 11 4. 5. for which the
Page 181 and 182: APPENDIX A Banana Taxonomy for Ugan
Page 183 and 184: BANANA TAXONOMY FOR UGANDA 167 Tabl
Page 185 and 186: BANANA TAXONOMY FOR UGANDA 169 Tabl
Page 187 and 188: BANANA TAXONOMY FOR TANZANIA 171 Ta
Page 189 and 190: BANANA TAXONOMY FOR TANZANIA 173 Ta
Page 191 and 192: APPENDIX C Use of Improved Banana V
Page 193 and 194: DETAILS OF SAMPLE SURVEY DESIGN 177
Page 199 and 200: VILLAGE SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN UGANDA
Page 201 and 202: List of Principal Authors and Contr
Page 203 and 204: ABOUT THE AUTHORS 187 rigation, and
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