Exploration of rainfed rice farming in Uganda based on a nationwide survey: Evolution, regionality, farmers and land

View/ Open
Date
2013Author
Haneishi, Yusuke
Okello, Stella E.
Asea, Godfrey
Tsuboi, Tatsushi
Maruyama, Atsushi
Takagaki, Michiko
Kikuchi, Masao
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Based on a nationwide survey of rice growing households, this paper explores how rainfed rice
cultivation evolved in Uganda, how diverse it is in different regions of the country, what categories of
farmers have adopted it, and how it has been integrated into their traditional cropping patterns. We
find that the diffusion of rainfed rice cultivation accelerated at around the turn of this century when
upland New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was introduced in the agro-ecological zones receiving annual
rainfall of 1000 mm or more. The growth rate of area under rainfed rice cultivation from 2000 to 2009
was 14% year-1 in the lowest zone and as high as 31% year-1 in the highest zone. Rice was grown
predominantly by smallholders. Farmers growing rainfed rice, upland and lowland alike, cultivated on
average 2 ha of farm land, of which one-third (0.6 ha) was planted to rice, and the sizes of cultivated
area and rice planted area of around 70% of farmers were below these averages. In terms of land
tenure systems, rice was a crop of more importance in areas where the traditional customary tenure
systems still remained, and the incidence of leasehold land tenure was higher for rice cultivation than
for other crops.