World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 49

World Food Policy

adoption of new technology. Considering
that rain-fed areas dominate in SSA, a
critically significant finding of this study
is that the improved rice technologies
have significant impacts on the rice
yields under rain-fed conditions. Judging
from the results of studies in the rain-fed
areas of Uganda and Ghana (Tables 3 and
4), it seems possible to increase rice yield
by 50–100% by adopting the improved
technologies. In order to increase the rice
yield much further, irrigation is needed.
Whether irrigation investment pays is an
important issue to be examined carefully.

The finding that training
activities with demonstration plots are
effective in the dissemination of the new
rice technologies in Uganda and Ghana
suggests that a major constraint on the
wider adoption of the new technologies
is the farmers’ lack of knowledge on new
technologies. According to the case study
in Ghana (deGraft-Johnson et al. 2014),
the spillover effects of new technology
adoption in the project villages on the
adoption in non-project villages are
significant in the case of bunding and
leveling but not in the case of MVs and
fertilizer applications. The authors argue
that this is due to the fact that while the
bunding and leveling are visible and
imitable, the know-how on appropriate
cultivation of MVs with fertilizer cannot
be easily copied. If this is true, it may
be a good idea to set up a relatively
small number of demonstration plots
compared with the number of locations
where training programs are offered.

Kijima, Ito, and Otsuka (2012)
find that the dis-adoption rate of
NERICA is very high (i.e., in the vicinity
of 50%). This is either because NERICA
was disseminated to unsuitable areas

for the production or because the
sustainable management was not well
understood by farmers. Indeed, there is
an indication that the yields of NERICA
decline over time due to the deterioration
of self-produced seeds or soil quality. In
either case, the major problem is that
appropriate production knowledge of
NERICA was not disseminated to rice
farmers.

It is clear that the absence of an
effective extension system is a major
constraint on the rice Green Revolution in
SSA. In Ghana, even though the LRDP was
an effective program, similar programs
have not been implemented for nearly
10 years. In Uganda, the geographical
coverage of the training program is very
small. It is worse in Mozambique where
no extension program for rice farming
has been carried out. Actually, there
are a very small number of agricultural
extension workers in SSA. Furthermore,
only a few of them are knowledgeable
about rice farming. Unless we invest in the
capacity building of extension workers,
the target of Coalition for African Rice
Development, that is the doubling of rice
production in 10 years from 2008, may
not be achieved.

Another possible constraint
on technology adoption is the lack of
credit. Kajisa and Payongayong (2011)
argue that the lack of credit access
leads to the insufficient application of
chemical fertilizer as well as hired labor
use in the Chokwe irrigation scheme
in Mozambique. Similarly, Nakano
and Kajisa (2011) report that the
access to formal credit is an important
determinant of fertilizer use, but not MV
adoption in Tanzania. MV seeds can be
self-produced and, hence, credit access is
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