Dryland cereals and Household Food Security in Tanzania: Potential and Constraints of Improved Sorghum Cultivars

Christin Schipmann-Schwarze, Elijah Muange, Alastair Orr and January M. Mafuru

No 126232, 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: More than one third of the population in Africa is still facing undernourishment and malnutrition. While poor and food-insecure people are most often living in unfavourable agricultural zones, such as semi-arid areas, only few studies have assessed the potential of well adapted dryland cereals to contribute to local food security. Here, we analyze the case of sorghum in Tanzania, and particularly focus on the role of improved sorghum cultivars. Using survey data from smallholder farmers and econometric techniques, we show that sorghum contributes to the food supply of a household. Despite the promise of higher yields and better resistance of improved sorghum cultivars to some biotic and abiotic stresses, adoption rates are, however, still low. Our results indicate that access to information and diversified networks constitute serious adoption constraints. National extension systems are a major bottleneck in overcoming such constraints.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Crop Production/Industries; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Production Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/126232/files/Full_paper-Brazil.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae12:126232

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.126232

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().