Impacts of Improved Bean Varietal Adoption on Income and Food Consumption in Uganda
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
ABSTRACT Common beans contribute to the livelihoods of many farmers’ households in Uganda. Adoption of improved beans is aimed at improving productivity, profitability, and consumption in order to reduce food insecurity. The study focused on impacts of adoption of improved bean varietal adoption on expenditures in Uganda. This research used data from a survey collected in January and February 2012 in Uganda by International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The survey was a nationally representative sample of 868 farmers’ households from the four main regions of Uganda. The 7-day recall period for food expenditures collected data for 91 food items and nonfood commodities. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and 2 Stage Least Squares procedures were used to analyze the results. Both adoption and intensity of adoption were utilized in this study to measure the extent of adoption. Results using adoption decision revealed that 56 percent of the sampled households adopted the improved bean varieties whereas intensity of adoption statistics results showed that 19 percent of bean seeds planted in the second season were improved varieties. Intensity of adoption of improved beans had a positive significant effect on weekly household expenditures on beans, cereals and nonfood commodities but negative effect on Household Diversity Dietary Score. Results further revealed that age, literacy level, household size positively influence the total expenditures (on food and nonfood) and nonfood expenditures. Additionally, land under bean cultivation significantly affected weekly household total expenditure. However, age and gender had no significant impact on expenditures on beans. The mean weekly expenditure of beans was Uganda shillings (UGX) 5,977 which represented 4 percent of weekly household total expenditure.