International Food Policy Research Institute
sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty
The cooking banana of the East African highlands has received little attention from crop improvement research or social science research relative to crops with greater global commercial value. Yet genetic transformation offers a particularly promising alternative for breeding host plant resistance to pests and disease in this crop. The National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Uganda have embarked upon an ambitious banana breeding program that employs a range of biotechnologies (embryo rescue, somatic embryogenesis), as well as crossing, propagation, and management practices, to address the most debilitating diseases and pests in East Africa.
This research report documents the uptake of newly released banana hybrids and other recommended banana practices on semi-subsistence, smallholder farms in East Africa. It also uses economics methods to analyze the effects of constraints related to production, markets, and social and human capital on banana production. Banana researchers know much about the social science aspects of banana production through their experience with farmers, but much of what they know had not been documented with social science methods and a statistically representative sample of farmers. Finally, this research develops a baseline to predict the impact of transgenic varieties currently under development, taking into account the characteristics of existing and emerging technologies. Later, this same baseline will be available to assess impacts ex post.