An Economic Assessment of Banana Genetic Improvement and ...

70 CHAPTER 5
considerably higher in lowland areas of
Tanzania, and differs markedly in pattern
between banana-growing households in
Uganda and Tanzania.
The diversity of banana cultivars is high
at the country, village, and household levels
across the Lake Victoria region of Uganda
and Tanzania. Even the most popular banana
cultivars occupy less than 10 percent of the
total number of mats grown in Uganda.
Cooking bananas are not only the most important
food staple for households, but they
are also a source of cash in local markets. In
Uganda, the findings support banana researchers’
observations that (1) farmers have
difficulties recognizing and attributing different
disease pressures and (2) farmers consider
endemic cooking bananas to be superior
in terms of cooking quality compared to
hybrid cultivars. Furthermore, use rates for
recommended management practices appear
to be much higher than for improved banana
cultivars, particularly in high-elevation and
exposed areas. Transfer of planting material,
predominantly between farmers, is evidently
more intensive in low-elevation areas, where
disease pressures are greater. Village social
structures and participation in social organizations
emerge as important determinants of
use of banana technologies.
The number of distinct banana cultivars
identified in Tanzania is larger than in
Uganda, considering the smaller geographic
extent of the Tanzanian sample, and recent
introductions of exotic and hybrid bananas
have no doubt contributed to the richness of
materials grown. A few common characteristics
emerge between findings in Uganda
and Tanzania, however: (1) the vast majority
of the identified cultivars (more than 80
percent) are endemic to the region; (2) on
average, households grow numerous distinct
cultivars simultaneously in their banana
groves; (3) all farms grow at least one cooking
cultivar; (4) farmers perceive endemic
bananas to be superior in terms of consumption
quality; and (5) there is strong evidence
of farmer-to-farmer exchange of planting
material of both endemic and exotic and/or
hybrid cultivars.
Adoption of hybrids and exotic cultivars
(both endemic to other regions but not this
one, and nonendemic) is greater in Tanzania
than in Uganda. The relative severity of
biotic pressures in Kagera Region is one
reason. Data also confirm that farmers in
Kagera Region perceive that hybrids are
superior to endemic types in terms of yield
and resistance to black Sigatoka and weevils,
but inferior with respect to Fusarium
wilt, as the scientists who recommended
the varieties had expected. The same cannot
be said for the farmers surveyed in
Uganda. Although this result could be an
artifact of the relatively small sample of
hybrid adopters in Uganda, it is consistent
with national researchers’ observations that
disease pressures were greater in Tanzania,
and Ugandan farmers have difficulty in
disease recognition. Clearly, dissemination
pathways, both formal and informal, are
another major factor that explains differences
in adoption between the two countries.
The next three chapters investigate the
determinants and effects of adoption of
cultivars and practices.
References
Bagamba, F. 2007. Market access and agricultural production: The case of banana production in
Uganda. Ph.D. thesis, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
Edmeades, S., M. Smale, M. Renkow, and D. Phaneuf. 2004. Cultivar demand within the framework
of an agricultural household model with attributes: The case of bananas in Uganda. Environment
and Production Technology Division Discussion Paper 125. Washington, D.C.: International
Food Policy Research Institute.