An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

186 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Charles A. Eledu joined IPGRI-INIBAP in June 2000 as a geographic information systems
specialist to work for INIBAP’s banana baseline information project in East and southern
Africa, based in Kampala, Uganda. Charles has over 10 years of R&D experience, having
previously worked with the Uganda Agriculture Ministry, Makerere University Institute for
Social Research, and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture as agricultural officer,
research associate, and geographic information systems research associate, respectively. He
holds an M.S. in soil survey (application of soil survey information for natural resources management)
from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation,
Enschede, The Netherlands, a B.S. in agri culture (management and extension) from
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and several other professional and technical postgraduate
qualifications.
Robert Kalyebara is a senior economist with NARO. He received a Ph.D. in agricultural
economics from Ohio State University in 2001 and has worked in research for 19 years,
mainly on crops. His main areas of specialization are impact assessment / research evaluation
and monitoring and evaluation.
Deborah Karamura joined IPGRI-INIBAP in January 2000 as a Musa genetic resource
specialist, responsible for INIBAP’s in situ banana conservation project in East and southern
Africa, based in Kampala, Uganda. Applying her wide experience in banana taxonomy and
nomenclature, particularly of highland bananas, Deborah has developed and tested methodologies
for the characterization and conservation of Musa diversity and created innovative
approaches for mobilizing and supporting farming communities in East Africa in the quest to
conserve banana diversity on farm. Her research focuses on the determination and documentation
of cultivar diversity in traditional banana-based systems; the identification of genetic
erosion factors; the documentation of traditional management approaches, with the aim of
integrating them with research-derived technologies through scientific methodologies; and the
use of banana diversity to improve rural livelihoods as an on-farm conservation strategy.
Enid Katungi is an economist with NARO and a Ph.D. student of agricultural economics at
the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her dissertation focuses on social capital and technology
adoption on small farms, exploring the impact of community associations, networks, and
other social characteristics on information diffusion and the use of agricultural technologies.
The dissertation also employs an actor-centered approach and analyzes the levels and determinants
of social capital among the agricultural households in the banana growing regions of
Uganda. Currently she is also working on the role of participatory technology dissemination
methods in technology adoption, focusing on banana technologies in Uganda. Enid obtained
her M.S. in agricultural economics (1998) and a B.S. in agriculture science (1992) both from
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Enoch Mutebi Kikulwe is an economist with the National Banana Research Programme of
NARO. He obtained an M.S. in agricultural economics from Makerere University, Kampala,
Uganda. He has worked on several research projects in Uganda, which involved survey design,
data collection, and data analysis. Enoch has worked as a data manager for this project and is
a doctoral student at the University of Wageningen, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Charles Machethe is professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and
Rural Development, the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. His major areas of research
are in agricultural and rural development, rural finance, economics of smallholder ir-