Agricultural Productivity and Household Welfare in Uganda: Examining the Relevance of Agricultural Improvement Interventions

Abstract

Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa remains a strong candidate for driving growth, alleviating poverty, and enhancing food security (Asfaw et al. 2012). Improving the productivity, proftability, and sustainability of smallholder farming is therefore one critical pathway for improved welfare for the majority of the region’s population (World Bank 2008). What is vital to note is that achieving agricultural productivity growth will not be possible without developing and disseminating yield-enhancing technologies since it is no longer feasible to meet the needs of the increasing population through the expansion of cultivable area (Asfaw et al. 2012). Agricultural research and technological improvements are considered as the vehicles through which agricultural productivity can be increased. A combination of those would result in income growth, asset accumulation, rural employment creation, and overall welfare improvement. In the absence of such innovations, poverty as well as meeting the demand for food will inevitably result in environmental and natural resource degradation as farmers encroach on forests and wetlands in search for fertile “virgin” land.