Seed is critical because it is the source of varietal technology, which largely affects agricultural productivity. The local private sector’s ability/incentives to innovate other technologies, induce institutional innovations, and invest in changing some of their socio-economic characteristics, can also be affected by the availability of these externally supplied varietal technology levels. In such cases, agricultural incomes (and overall household incomes if they largely depend on agricultural incomes) are likely to be largely affected by the varietal technology levels available for particular locations. Varietal technology levels of certain crops (for example rice) in Nigeria may vary considerably across locations. This is because the overall domestic support for varietal developments through agricultural R&D in Nigeria has been lower than in developing countries in other regions, and more importantly, many improved varieties are developed/tested in relatively few research stations in the country, despite the fact that Nigerian production environments are highly diverse. These conditions suggest that agricultural productivity, incomes in Nigeria may vary considerably across locations, depending on the similarity of agro-ecological conditions of each location with those conditions in areas where most varietal developments activities take place. This research will test such hypothesis by using the information on the locations of agricultural research stations in Nigeria, various indicators of agro-ecological conditions, and agricultural production and income data of Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS). The analysis will ultimately focus on assessing how agricultural production, and incomes of households are associated with their similarity with agricultural research stations in terms of agro-ecological environments.
Research Team Leader
Dr. Hiroyuki Takeshima (IFPRI)
Research Team Members
Dr. Maji Alhassan Tswako (National Cereals Research Institute)
