Soil Fertility, Fertilizer, and the Maize Green Revolution in East Africa

Matsumoto, Tomoya ; Yamano, Takashi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;    AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE;    AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY;    AGROFORESTRY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5158
RP-ID  :  WPS5158

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper investigates the reasons forthe low application of external fertilizers on farms inKenya and Uganda. The analysis uses a large panel ofhousehold data with rich soil fertility data at the plotlevel. The authors control for maize seed selection andhousehold effects by using a fixed-effects semi-parametricendogenous switching model. The results suggest that Kenyanmaize farmers have applied inorganic fertilizer at theoptimal level, corresponding to the high nitrogen-maizerelative price, in one of the two survey years and alsoresponded to the price change over time. In Uganda, even thelow application of inorganic fertilizer is not profitablebecause of its high relative price. The authors concludethat policies that reduce the relative price of fertilizercould be effective in both countries, while the efficacy ofpolicies based on improving farmers' knowledge aboutfertilizer use will be limited as long as the relative priceof fertilizer remains high.