 Too much, too soon? Early-maturing maize varieties as drought escape strategy in MalawiUwe Grewer, Dong-Hyuk Kim and Katharina Waha Food Policy, 2024, vol. 129, issue C Abstract: Adopting early-maturing maize varieties can substantially increase yield and yield stability in suitable environments. Actionable recommendations that specify where early-maturing varieties can be suitably applied are lacking across low-income countries. We found for maize in Malawi that varieties with longer maturity duration provide on average the highest yield. However, if water stress occurs, we found that its timing determines which seed variety performs best. If water stress conditions are confined to the late season, early-maturing varieties escape drought and perform better than medium- and late-maturing varieties. Instead, if water stress conditions start already from mid-season, early-maturing varieties perform worst. Our results demonstrate that the typical seasonal timing of water stress can serve as a suitable criterion for recommending where to adopt early-maturing varieties. Finally, we propose an integrated research framework that complements our econometric analysis and allows to derive actionable variety suitability recommendations at the country level. Keywords: Seed policy; Drought; Smallholder agriculture; Technology adoption; Variety recommendations; Household survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:129:y:2024:i:c:s0306919224001775 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102766 Access Statistics for this article Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier |
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