This report is one of four reports in the series of policy reports from the Business Experience Exchange Programme. It analyses the role of rural producer organisations in national policy development and the influence of national policy on the development of the rural institutions in Uganda.
In this paper, the authors evaluate the impact of access to ICT-based market information on prices received by farmers and the intensity of adoption of improved hybrid and composite maize varieties. Propensity score matching is applied to cross-sectional survey data from farmers whose major cash crop is maize. Results indicate that adoption of improved maize has a positive and significant effect on maize yields, gross maize revenue per acre, and gross margins. The authors find that access to ICT-based market information has a positive and significant impact on the level of output prices received and the intensity of adoption of improved maize. Access to ICT-based market information implies better prices and this positively affects the intensity of adoption of improved seed. The implication is that improving food security and farm incomes should consider both the promotion of yield-augmenting agricultural technologies and improved access to ICT-based market information.
Propensity score matching is used to investigate the economic burden of repeat episodes of malaria in rural Uganda on farm incomes and household food consumption expenditures. We also examine the impacts of: expenditure on mosquito bed-nets on the number of malaria episodes and access to microcredit on expenditures to prevent the disease. The findings show that annual farm income declines by about 50% due to severe frequent malaria episodes and the household expenditure on animal protein foods declines by 34%. Repeat malaria episodes among children and adults decline among users of bed nets by about 29% and 41%, respectively. Improved access to microcredit alleviates household liquidity constraints and enables households to increase their investment in preventive measures by over 62%. The results show that after controlling for household characteristics, malaria places a significant economic burden on rural households.
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