Publication: Soil Fertility, Fertilizer, and the Maize Green Revolution in East Africa
Loading...
Published
2009-12
ISSN
Date
2014-09-02
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper investigates the reasons for the low application of external fertilizers on farms in Kenya and Uganda. The analysis uses a large panel of household data with rich soil fertility data at the plot level. The authors control for maize seed selection and household effects by using a fixed-effects semi-parametric endogenous switching model. The results suggest that Kenyan maize farmers have applied inorganic fertilizer at the optimal level, corresponding to the high nitrogen-maize relative price, in one of the two survey years and also responded to the price change over time. In Uganda, even the low application of inorganic fertilizer is not profitable because of its high relative price. The authors conclude that policies that reduce the relative price of fertilizer could be effective in both countries, while the efficacy of policies based on improving farmers' knowledge about fertilizer use will be limited as long as the relative price of fertilizer remains high.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Matsumoto, Tomoya; Yamano, Takashi. 2009. Soil Fertility, Fertilizer, and the Maize Green Revolution in East Africa. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 5158. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19960 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Intergenerational Income Mobility around the World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-09)This paper introduces a new global database with estimates of intergenerational income mobility for 87 countries, covering 84 percent of the world’s population. This marks a notable expansion of the cross-country evidence base on income mobility, particularly among low- and middle-income countries. The estimates indicate that the negative association between income mobility and inequality (known as the Great Gatsby Curve) continues to hold across this wider range of countries. The database also reveals a positive association between income mobility and national income per capita, suggesting that countries achieve higher levels of intergenerational mobility as they grow richer.Publication Engineering Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-29)As Ukraine emerges from the devastation of war, it faces a historic opportunity to engineer its own Wirtschaftswunder—a productivity-driven economic transformation akin to post-war West Germany. While investment-led growth may offer quick wins, it is efficiency, innovation, and institutional reform that will determine Ukraine’s long-term economic trajectory. Drawing on rich micro-level firm data spanning 25 years, this paper uncovers deep structural distortions that have suppressed creative destruction and productivity in Ukraine. It finds that business dynamism is on the decline, alongside rising market concentration among incumbent businesses, including low productivity state owned enterprises. To inform priorities for reviving business dynamism, this study develops a model of creative destruction drawing on Acemoglu et al. (2018) and Akcigit et al. (2021). The quantitative assessment highlights that policies that discipline entrenched incumbents are the bedrock for reviving business dynamism and engineer Ukraine’s Wirtschaftswunder. Policies targeting specific types of firms have limited efficacy when incumbents run wild.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Unequal Burdens, Uneven Benefits(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-21)This paper applies a gender lens to the distributional analysis of Peru’s fiscal system using the Commitment to Equity methodology with data from the 2019 Encuesta Nacional de Hogares. The paper examines how taxes and transfers affect households with gender-relevant characteristics, including presence of dependents, care responsibilities, and agricultural reliance. The analysis reveals that while Peru’s fiscal system increases poverty when considering taxes and cash transfers (consumable income), it reduces both poverty and inequality when including the monetized value of education and health services (final income). The findings also show that nuclear, extended, and single-parent households experience poverty increases after fiscal interventions, while elderly and single adult households see reductions in poverty. Agricultural households benefit more due to targeted transfers and lower tax burdens. Policy simulations show that expanding the generosity of existing direct transfers reduces poverty, especially for single mothers and agricultural households, but still falls short in addressing disadvantages faced by families with caregiving responsibilities. The findings underscore the need for a more gender-responsive fiscal agenda.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Ukraine : Soil Fertility to Strengthen Climate Resilience(World Bank, Washington, DC and FAO, Rome, 2014)Ukraine is renowned as the breadbasket of Europe thanks to its black soils ( Chernozem black because of the high organic matter content) which offer exceptional agronomic conditions. One-third of the worldwide stock of the fertile black soils, which cover more than half of Ukraine s arable land, a large variety of climatic zones, and favourable temperature and moisture regimes, offers attractive conditions for the production of a large range of crops including cereals and oilseeds. Ukraine s proximity to large and growing neighbouring markets the Russian Federation and the European Union and access to deep sea ports at the Black Sea, provide direct access to world markets, especially large grain importers in the Middle East and North Africa.Publication Is Increasing Inorganic Fertilizer Use in Sub-Saharan Africa a Profitable Proposition? Evidence from Nigeria(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-02)Inorganic fertilizer use across Sub-Saharan Africa is generally considered to be low. Yet, this belief is predicated on the assumption that it is profitable to use rates higher than currently observed. However, there is little rigorous empirical evidence to support this notion. Using a nationally representative panel data set, and with due recognition of the role of risk and uncertainty, this paper empirically estimates the profitability of fertilizer use for maize production in Nigeria. The analysis finds that inorganic fertilizer use in Nigeria is not as low as conventional wisdom suggests. Low marginal physical product and high transportation costs significantly reduce the profitability of fertilizer use. The paper finds evidence that strategies to reduce transportation costs are likely to have a much larger effect on the profitability of fertilizer use than fertilizer subsidies. Apart from reduced transportation costs, other constraints such as timely access to the product; availability of complementary inputs such as improved seeds, irrigation, and credit; as well as good management practices are also necessary for sustained agricultural productivity improvements.Publication Publication Incomplete Markets and Fertilizer Use : Evidence from Ethiopia(2010-03-01)While the economic returns to using chemical fertilizer in Africa can be large, application rates are low. This study explores whether this is due to missing and imperfect markets. Results based on a panel survey of Ethiopian farmers suggest that while fertilizer markets are not altogether missing in rural Ethiopia, high transport costs, unfavorable climate, price risk, and illiteracy present formidable hurdles to farmer participation. Moreover, the combination of factors that promote or impede effective fertilizer markets differs among locations, making it difficult to find a single production technology that is uniformly profitable -- perhaps explaining the inconsistency between field studies finding large returns to fertilizer use in Ethiopia and survey-based studies finding fertilizer use to be uneconomic. The results suggest that households with greater stores of wealth, human capital and authority can overcome these hurdles. The finding offers some encouragement, but also implies a self-enforcing link between low agricultural productivity and poverty, since low-asset households are less able to overcome these problems. The study suggests that the provision of extension services can be effective and that lowering transport costs can raise the intensity of fertilizer use by lowering the cost of fertilizer and boosting the farmgate value of output.Publication Adapting to Climate Change : The Case of Rice in Indonesia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-07-01)There is increasing interest in climate change issues in Indonesia particularly in the lead-up to the COP13 or Copenhagen meeting in Bali in December 2007 when there was renewed focus on Indonesia as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world due to deforestation, peat-land degradation, and forest fires. In Indonesia, the agriculture sector employs the largest share, 45 percent, of Indonesia's labor and contributes the second largest share, 17.5 percent, of gross domestic product (GDP). Poverty is a largely rural phenomenon. In 2002, 61 percent of the poor earned their livelihood in the agricultural sector while 63 percent of Indonesia's poor population resided in rural areas. In Indonesia, the agriculture sector is the main source of methane emissions as it accounts for 59 percent of total national emissions. Seventy percent of the emissions from the agriculture sector are generated by rice cultivation. Methane emission in agriculture is mainly due to inefficient practices such as over-irrigation, misuse of fertilizer, and poor livestock feeding practices. The study is organized as follows: the introductory chapter is followed by a chapter that discusses the key elements of adaptation in a general agricultural context. This is followed by a review of the literature on climate change in Indonesia and the implications for improving rice productivity in the context of concomitant changes in land use. Chapter four focuses on two key issues for economic and policy options as part of the adaptation agenda. The first relates to the important role of Bulog, (logistics agency) and the second pertains to the current structure of the fertilizer subsidies. The final chapter presents conclusions and recommendations.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication The World Bank Group Beyond the Crisis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10-09)Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank, addressed the following issues: seeds of crisis; the changing context; responsible globalization; the current role of the World Bank Group; the role of the World Bank Group in a new post-crisis World; and the reform agenda. He pointed to four aspects of Group’s future role: development finance; delivering knowledge products; the global public goods agenda (such as climate change and communicable diseases); and unforeseen future crises. Reform efforts include: 1) improving development effectiveness with a focus on results, decentralization, gender, investment lending reform, and human resources; 2) promoting accountability and good governance, and 3) increasing cost efficiency. He noted the completion of recent enhancements to the voice and representation of developing and transition countries in the Bank Group. Bretton Woods is being overhauled before our eyes.Publication World Development Report 1987(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)This report, consisting of two parts, is the tenth in the annual series assessing development issues. Part I reviews recent trends in the world economy and their implications for the future prospects of developing countries. It stresses that better economic performance is possible in both industrial and developing countries, provided the commitment to economic policy reforms is maintained and reinforced. In regard to the external debt issues, the report argues for strengthened cooperation among industrial countries in the sphere of macroeconomic policy to promote smooth adjustment to the imbalances caused by external payments (in developing countries). Part II reviews and evaluates the varied experience with government policies in support of industrialization. Emphasis is placed on policies which affect both the efficiency and sustainability of industrial transformation, especially in the sphere of foreign trade. The report finds that developing countries which followed policies that promoted the integration of their industrial sector into the international economy through trade have fared better than those which insulated themselves from international competition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.