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Publication: Understanding gender differences in agricultural productivity in Uganda and Nigeria

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We investigate gender differences in agricultural productivity using data collected in 2005 from Nigeria and in 2003 from Uganda. Results indicate that lower productivity is persistent from female-owned plots and female-headed households, accounting for a range of socioeconomic variables, agricultural inputs, and crop choices using multivariate Tobit models. These results are robust to the inclusion of household-level unobservables. However, productivity differences depend on the type of gender indicator used, crop-specific samples, agroecological region, and inclusion of biophysical characteristics. More nuanced gender data collection and analysis in agricultural research spanning diverse regions are encouraged to identify interventions that will increase productivity and program effectiveness for male and female farmers.

Author:

Peterman, Amber

Quisumbing, Agnes

Behrman, Julia

Nkonya, Ephraim

Calls for paper: Ag productivity

The Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) at the Brookings Institution is currently inviting papers for its first annual Africa Growth Forum in January 2011 to address the issue of how best to enhance agricultural productivity through the adoption of effective technologies and innovations by African farmers. The forum will bring together researchers who have completed or are undertaking studies that can explain the modalities and channels for transferring new technologies and new ideas to farmers successfully, and the conditions under which these work. Researchers will interact closely with policymakers at the forum to address the policy environments that are conducive to the adoption of new technologies and ideas, and to discuss the promotion of private investment in agriculture.