ARE WOMEN LESS PRODUCTIVE FARMERS? HOW MARKETS AND RISK AFFECT FERTILIZER USE, PRODUCTIVITY, AND MEASURED GENDER EFFECTS IN UGANDA DONALD F. LARSON, SARA SAVASTANO, SIOBHAN MURRAY, AND AMPARO PALACIOS-LÓPEZ Donald F Larson, Development Research Group, World Bank 19 th ICABR Conference Ravello, June 2015

Overview: three ideas and some tools  Policy relevance  African Green Revolution strategy Close the yield gap  Livelihood strategies  Ex ante precautions partly explain the yield gap  Empirical findings that women farmers are less productive  Close the gender gap Maybe gender hurdles affects technology and input choices  Econometric tools  Instruments to deal with effects of gender hurdles to see what explains the gaps 2 Disclaimer: My view, not necessarily the World Bank’s

African Green Revolution as a pillar of African rural development strategies 3  Components Smallholder farms Staple crops “Modern Varieties”: seeds developed to improve smallholder yields  Who’s on board? World Bank “Eighty-six per cent of staples in poor areas come from local sources, so support for country-led efforts to bolster smallholder agriculture is critical.” (Zoellick, 2011) FAO, “Sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production is one of FAO’s strategic objectives.” (Diouf, 2011); IFPRI, “G20 Ministers of Agriculture must focus on smallholder farmers to achieve food security and prevent food price volatility” (Fan, 2011); Pan-African Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, “AGRA works to achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa through the promotion of rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers.” AGRA (2011); Gates Foundation (Gates, 2012) “If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture. Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty, and they have made life better for billions of people.”

Africa’s policies modeled on Asian experience. Why Asia? Source: von Braun (2005) 4

Why Asia: Asia’s Green Revolution Experience sustained growth from smallholder farms  Virtuous cycle  Agricultural productivity gains on small farms  Higher rural incomes  Reductions in rural poverty  Investments in human and physical capital in rural economy  Declining food prices  Reductions in urban poverty  Costs  Environmental  Water, toxins in soil Otsuka and Larson (2013)5

Livelihood choices and risks  Livelihoods shaped by uninsurable risks  Weather, prices, health, jobs  Ex ante choices to mitigate risk  Informal insurance Family, village, tribe  Production choices that often lower productivity Self sufficiency in food Crop diversification Low investments in inputs Non-farm income 6

Gender hurdles that might limit productivity on Ugandan farms  Few obvious formal obstacles  Informal obstacles  Technical and market information Interactions with extension agents Interactions with traveling buyers and input providers  Financial decisions Control of household finances  Single parent Added constraints on time 7

More about our Uganda sample: weather risks: two growing seasons 8

Livelihood strategy: grow your own food 9 Map shows average share of production sold, by value, village averages Few communities sell most of what they produce

Empirical exercise: estimate a staple crop (maize) yield equation with weather outcomes and ex ante diversification choices accounted for 10 Regular inputs Diversification Fragmentation Weather outcomes Market characteristics Women: tend to use slightly fewer inputs

Empirical strategy: account for possible hurdles to using fertilizer and hiring labor using instruments 11 Account for market characteristics Account for financial liquidity Account for extension visits and gender of household head

With and without instruments 12 Gender story: Using OLS the “women achieve lower yields” effect is there and statistically significant” It goes away with instruments Rest of the story: Weather outcomes, diversification strategies matter more Labor market choices matter more

Implications for the African Green Revolution strategy  Closing the gender gap  Programs that lower women farmer’s access to markets and information can boost maize yields The gain measured in this exercise is modest  Closing the yield gap  Farmer choices that limit maize yields are harder to address The losses measured are larger Weather outcomes matter Ex ante actions taken to limit risk matter Labor market imperfections matter  Are improved seeds the right “modern” technology  Asia, often single crop, often land constraint  Africa, different crops, different land constraints Technology increases risks that Ugandan farmers, male and female, work to avoid Better seeds: Shorter growing periods, drought resistance, better nutrient take up System approach (dairy, maize( 13

Related reading 14  Larson, Donald F., Sara Savastano, Siobhan Murray, and Amparo Palacios-Lopez Are women less productive farmers? How markets and risk affect fertilizer use, productivity and measured gender effects in Uganda, with, Policy Research Working Paper 7241, Washington: World Bank (2015).Are women less productive farmers? How markets and risk affect fertilizer use, productivity and measured gender effects in Uganda  Larson, Donald F., Keijiro Otsuka, Tomoya Matsumoto, and Talip Kilic. Should African rural development strategies depend on smallholder farms? An exploration of the inverse productivity hypothesis Agricultural Economics 45(3): (2014).Should African rural development strategies depend on smallholder farms? An exploration of the inverse productivity hypothesis  Keijiro Otsuka and Donald F. Larson. An African Green Revolution: Finding Ways to Boost Productivity on Small Farms Dordrecht: Springer (2013).An African Green Revolution: Finding Ways to Boost Productivity on Small Farms

Wonky annex about instrument related tests 15