Until recently, attention to rice value chain upgrading has been limited in many rice-producing c... more Until recently, attention to rice value chain upgrading has been limited in many rice-producing countries of Eastern Africa. Yet, it is this mid-stream section (the millers and traders) – the so-called ‘hidden middle’ – which is essential to sustaining the capacity of rice value chains to contributing to food security in the region, as it fulfils a crucial intermediary role between supply and demand. In this paper, we focus on the role of rice processors as key actors in rice sector development in East Africa along with what challenges and opportunities they face, drawing on primary data generated from surveys and key informant interviews in Ethiopia and Tanzania.
International Research Journal of Agricultural Science and soil Science, 2012
This research attempted to examine red pepper marketing in Alaba and Siltie with the specific obj... more This research attempted to examine red pepper marketing in Alaba and Siltie with the specific objective of identifying factors affecting volume of pepper supply. Heckman two stage model was used to investigate factors affecting pepper market participation decision and quantity supply of pepper. One of the most important variables influencing the decision to participate in pepper market was pepper production. Consequently, extension work should focus on encouraging farmers to participate in pepper production especially, there was a need to increase disease resistant variety and disseminate these technologies to potential areas. Cereal crop yield was adversely affected probability of market participation. Keeping their specialization and social role in pepper production potential areas is necessary. Moreover, pepper production and extension contacts were the determinant factors of the quantity of pepper supplied. Therefore, policies that would improve pepper production capacity by ide...
This article presents an assessment of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its agricultura... more This article presents an assessment of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its agricultural impacts in the Ethiopian portion of the Nile and Baro-Akobo river basins. A total of 500 randomly selected households were interviewed from 15 kebeles in five woredas, three each from dega, woina-dega and kolla agroecological zones. In addition, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted in each kebele. Descriptive statistics and ÷2 and F tests were used to summarize quantitative data, while qualitative data were organized and used to augment the quantitative analysis. Results indicate that a majority of farmers perceived climate change as manifested in temperature and rainfall changes, over the past two to three decades. Regarding agricultural impacts, 77% of respondents stated having observed reduction in crop production while 60% observed reduction in the length of crop growing period. Similarly, 79%, 62% and 44% of respondents perceived increased incidence of insects, plant diseases, and weeds, respectively. Also, about 59% of the respondents perceived shift of suitable areas for major crops. The belg season production, in the traditionally belg growing areas, has been almost totally abandoned. A higher proportion of households in dega and kolla areas perceived negative agricultural impacts as compared to those in woina-dega, the difference being statistically significant. Similarly, statistically significant gender-based differences were observed in perception of climate change and its agricultural impacts, where the proportion of females perceiving climate change was lower than that of males. It is concluded that there is a need for identification and promotion of community-based adaptation measures that take into account local perceptions and knowledge of climate change and its multiple impacts.
Go to AGRIS search. GIS based EX ante impact assessment for QPM maize: the case in Amhara regiona... more Go to AGRIS search. GIS based EX ante impact assessment for QPM maize: the case in Amhara regional state. ...
Agricultural commercialisation is seen as one of the most important avenues for fundamental struc... more Agricultural commercialisation is seen as one of the most important avenues for fundamental structural transformation and development in sub-Saharan Africa, and is assumed to help enhance a wide array of household welfare indicators among rural households whose livelihoods directly derive from agriculture. Over recent years, sub-Saharan African countries have experimented with different models of agricultural commercialisation but, while there have been some success stories, the performance track record of agricultural commercialisation has generally been dismal. While there is a growing literature on drivers and obstacles for commercialisation at regional and national levels, less is known about how these factors play out in particular value chains, where there is still a need to better understand what drives or hinders the success of commercialisation. A set of APRA studies were carried out to address this gap, exploring the dynamics of crop value chains as a way of understanding ...
This article presents the evaluation of the impact of the adoption of improved rice varieties on ... more This article presents the evaluation of the impact of the adoption of improved rice varieties on yield, commer- cialization, multidimensional poverty, and subjective poverty using data collected from 594 rice producing smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. We adopted an endogenous switching regression model complemented with a propensity score matching methodology to test robustness and reduced selection bias restricting from both observed and unobserved characteristics. The analysis results are consistent across models, indicating that adoption of improved rice varieties has a robust and positive impact on rice yield, and commercialization. Controlling the variations in household characteristics, the average effect of improved rice varieties adoption on productivity was 0.564 t/ha. Similarly, the econometric result showed that improved rice variety adoption decreased multidimensional poverty and subjective poverty by 1.7% and 12.4%, respectively. The government should work with development partners and NGOs to ease the accessibility and expansion of improved rice varieties in rice producing areas of the country. Therefore, policymakers and development organizations should consider improved rice variety adoption as the main strategy to increase productivity, commercialization, and reduce poverty of the rice farm households
This country review aims to identify the key dynamics, actors and associated discourses of agricu... more This country review aims to identify the key dynamics, actors and associated discourses of agricultural commercialisation in Ethiopia. To this end, we aim to shed light on the forces and factors that influence policy processes and the contexts in which the political and bureaucratic establishments operate. Moreover, we examine the incentives generated by the mode of operation of existing working systems by inducing involved actors to expedite the venture of agricultural commercialisation.UKAI
Wereta – the administrative capital of Fogera district – is an example of one of the fastest grow... more Wereta – the administrative capital of Fogera district – is an example of one of the fastest growing urban areas in the Fogera plain. Its rapid development is strongly connected with the development of the rice industry, which has had a spillover effect in the development of diverse services, including hospitality, wholesale and retail businesses, and banking. This brief examines the role of rice commercialisation in the development of Wereta City Administration and concludes with some pointers for scaling experiences that may be applicable to other areas suitable for enhancing rice production and processing
Smallholder agriculture in developing countries is characterized by low productivity. Improving t... more Smallholder agriculture in developing countries is characterized by low productivity. Improving the productive efficiency of farm households is considered one of the paths to increase productivity and reduce poverty. This study analyzed the poverty reduction effects of improving the technical efficiency of cereal-producing farm households using plot-level data from rural Ethiopia. The effects were also evaluated whether they were heterogeneous relative to the level of crop diversification. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and stochastic meta-frontier approach were used to estimate the poverty status and the technical efficiency scores, respectively, and the Herfindahl Index (HI) was used to compute crop diversification. The instrumental Tobit Model was specified to estimate the poverty reduction effect of technical efficiency. Our results revealed that the mean technical efficiency of farm households was estimated to be 58%. The poverty estimate results showed that a higher proportion of farm households were multidimensional poor. The incidence of poverty and the mean deprivation score was found to be 57.9% and 44.1%, respectively. Overall, the value of MPI estimated was 31.2%, implying the farm households experienced 31.2% of the total deprivations across all indicators. The HI was 0.51, indicating a moderate degree of crop diversification among farm households. The model results showed that a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly drives down the household multidimensional poverty by 15.3% at 1% level, keeping other things being constant. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly reduces household multidimensional poverty by 7.0% and 7.8% at 1% level among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households, respectively. In conclusion, technical efficiency has a higher effect on multidimensional poverty among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households. Therefore, enhancing the productive capacity of farm households among the lower degree of crop diversification to efficiently use production inputs may assist in poverty reduction.
Until recently, attention to rice value chain upgrading has been limited in many rice-producing c... more Until recently, attention to rice value chain upgrading has been limited in many rice-producing countries of Eastern Africa. Yet, it is this mid-stream section (the millers and traders) – the so-called ‘hidden middle’ – which is essential to sustaining the capacity of rice value chains to contributing to food security in the region, as it fulfils a crucial intermediary role between supply and demand. In this paper, we focus on the role of rice processors as key actors in rice sector development in East Africa along with what challenges and opportunities they face, drawing on primary data generated from surveys and key informant interviews in Ethiopia and Tanzania.
International Research Journal of Agricultural Science and soil Science, 2012
This research attempted to examine red pepper marketing in Alaba and Siltie with the specific obj... more This research attempted to examine red pepper marketing in Alaba and Siltie with the specific objective of identifying factors affecting volume of pepper supply. Heckman two stage model was used to investigate factors affecting pepper market participation decision and quantity supply of pepper. One of the most important variables influencing the decision to participate in pepper market was pepper production. Consequently, extension work should focus on encouraging farmers to participate in pepper production especially, there was a need to increase disease resistant variety and disseminate these technologies to potential areas. Cereal crop yield was adversely affected probability of market participation. Keeping their specialization and social role in pepper production potential areas is necessary. Moreover, pepper production and extension contacts were the determinant factors of the quantity of pepper supplied. Therefore, policies that would improve pepper production capacity by ide...
This article presents an assessment of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its agricultura... more This article presents an assessment of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its agricultural impacts in the Ethiopian portion of the Nile and Baro-Akobo river basins. A total of 500 randomly selected households were interviewed from 15 kebeles in five woredas, three each from dega, woina-dega and kolla agroecological zones. In addition, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted in each kebele. Descriptive statistics and ÷2 and F tests were used to summarize quantitative data, while qualitative data were organized and used to augment the quantitative analysis. Results indicate that a majority of farmers perceived climate change as manifested in temperature and rainfall changes, over the past two to three decades. Regarding agricultural impacts, 77% of respondents stated having observed reduction in crop production while 60% observed reduction in the length of crop growing period. Similarly, 79%, 62% and 44% of respondents perceived increased incidence of insects, plant diseases, and weeds, respectively. Also, about 59% of the respondents perceived shift of suitable areas for major crops. The belg season production, in the traditionally belg growing areas, has been almost totally abandoned. A higher proportion of households in dega and kolla areas perceived negative agricultural impacts as compared to those in woina-dega, the difference being statistically significant. Similarly, statistically significant gender-based differences were observed in perception of climate change and its agricultural impacts, where the proportion of females perceiving climate change was lower than that of males. It is concluded that there is a need for identification and promotion of community-based adaptation measures that take into account local perceptions and knowledge of climate change and its multiple impacts.
Go to AGRIS search. GIS based EX ante impact assessment for QPM maize: the case in Amhara regiona... more Go to AGRIS search. GIS based EX ante impact assessment for QPM maize: the case in Amhara regional state. ...
Agricultural commercialisation is seen as one of the most important avenues for fundamental struc... more Agricultural commercialisation is seen as one of the most important avenues for fundamental structural transformation and development in sub-Saharan Africa, and is assumed to help enhance a wide array of household welfare indicators among rural households whose livelihoods directly derive from agriculture. Over recent years, sub-Saharan African countries have experimented with different models of agricultural commercialisation but, while there have been some success stories, the performance track record of agricultural commercialisation has generally been dismal. While there is a growing literature on drivers and obstacles for commercialisation at regional and national levels, less is known about how these factors play out in particular value chains, where there is still a need to better understand what drives or hinders the success of commercialisation. A set of APRA studies were carried out to address this gap, exploring the dynamics of crop value chains as a way of understanding ...
This article presents the evaluation of the impact of the adoption of improved rice varieties on ... more This article presents the evaluation of the impact of the adoption of improved rice varieties on yield, commer- cialization, multidimensional poverty, and subjective poverty using data collected from 594 rice producing smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. We adopted an endogenous switching regression model complemented with a propensity score matching methodology to test robustness and reduced selection bias restricting from both observed and unobserved characteristics. The analysis results are consistent across models, indicating that adoption of improved rice varieties has a robust and positive impact on rice yield, and commercialization. Controlling the variations in household characteristics, the average effect of improved rice varieties adoption on productivity was 0.564 t/ha. Similarly, the econometric result showed that improved rice variety adoption decreased multidimensional poverty and subjective poverty by 1.7% and 12.4%, respectively. The government should work with development partners and NGOs to ease the accessibility and expansion of improved rice varieties in rice producing areas of the country. Therefore, policymakers and development organizations should consider improved rice variety adoption as the main strategy to increase productivity, commercialization, and reduce poverty of the rice farm households
This country review aims to identify the key dynamics, actors and associated discourses of agricu... more This country review aims to identify the key dynamics, actors and associated discourses of agricultural commercialisation in Ethiopia. To this end, we aim to shed light on the forces and factors that influence policy processes and the contexts in which the political and bureaucratic establishments operate. Moreover, we examine the incentives generated by the mode of operation of existing working systems by inducing involved actors to expedite the venture of agricultural commercialisation.UKAI
Wereta – the administrative capital of Fogera district – is an example of one of the fastest grow... more Wereta – the administrative capital of Fogera district – is an example of one of the fastest growing urban areas in the Fogera plain. Its rapid development is strongly connected with the development of the rice industry, which has had a spillover effect in the development of diverse services, including hospitality, wholesale and retail businesses, and banking. This brief examines the role of rice commercialisation in the development of Wereta City Administration and concludes with some pointers for scaling experiences that may be applicable to other areas suitable for enhancing rice production and processing
Smallholder agriculture in developing countries is characterized by low productivity. Improving t... more Smallholder agriculture in developing countries is characterized by low productivity. Improving the productive efficiency of farm households is considered one of the paths to increase productivity and reduce poverty. This study analyzed the poverty reduction effects of improving the technical efficiency of cereal-producing farm households using plot-level data from rural Ethiopia. The effects were also evaluated whether they were heterogeneous relative to the level of crop diversification. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and stochastic meta-frontier approach were used to estimate the poverty status and the technical efficiency scores, respectively, and the Herfindahl Index (HI) was used to compute crop diversification. The instrumental Tobit Model was specified to estimate the poverty reduction effect of technical efficiency. Our results revealed that the mean technical efficiency of farm households was estimated to be 58%. The poverty estimate results showed that a higher proportion of farm households were multidimensional poor. The incidence of poverty and the mean deprivation score was found to be 57.9% and 44.1%, respectively. Overall, the value of MPI estimated was 31.2%, implying the farm households experienced 31.2% of the total deprivations across all indicators. The HI was 0.51, indicating a moderate degree of crop diversification among farm households. The model results showed that a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly drives down the household multidimensional poverty by 15.3% at 1% level, keeping other things being constant. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly reduces household multidimensional poverty by 7.0% and 7.8% at 1% level among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households, respectively. In conclusion, technical efficiency has a higher effect on multidimensional poverty among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households. Therefore, enhancing the productive capacity of farm households among the lower degree of crop diversification to efficiently use production inputs may assist in poverty reduction.
Uploads
Papers by Dawit Alemu