Cereal yields, land quality and farmers’ incentives

An increase in global cereal yields is socially desirable as global population increases relative to the amount of agricultural land. Technological solutions are often advocated in this respect such as cereal varieties with higher yield potential and improved agronomic inputs.

This research project, however, questions the current strong focus on technological solutions; it argues that the difference between yield potential and actual yields, which is called the yield gap, might still be largely unexploited due to socio-economic and institutional constraints. These constraints confine the potential effect of new technologies and hence need to be integrated in the development of technologies.

The research comprises two parts. The first part compares trends in yield potential with trends in average national yields for wheat, rice and maize for a cross-section of countries. It hypothesizes that an increase in yield potential does not unconditionally lead to an increase in national average yields.

The second part seeks the determinants of cereal yield at the farm household level. It hypothesizes that farm household decisions concerning cereal yields are endogenous to their socioeconomic and biophysical environment. The research uses agent based bio-economic modeling calibrated to farm households in Uganda. Computer simulation is used to analyze the yield gap and to identify optimal combinations of policies and strategic investments in crop breeding research.

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