World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 38

How Promising is the Rice Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa?

2006; Otsuka and Kijima 2010). Yet the
appropriate strategies to realize a Green
Revolution in SSA are still unclear. Recent
studies edited by Otsuka and Larson
(2013), which compare the experience of
the Asian Green Revolution with current
grain farming in SSA, suggest that lowland
rice is the most promising grain. This
is essentially because high-yielding rice
technology can be directly transferable
from tropical Asia to SSA (Estudillo and
Otsuka 2013; Nakano and Kajisa 2012).

This is illustrated by Figure 1,
which compares changes in grain yields
over time in India and SSA and their
differences between the two regions. India
is chosen for comparison because among
Asian countries India is agro-climatically
similar to SSA and, hence, cropping
patterns are not so different (Tsusaka and
Otsuka 2013a; 2013b).2 Several important
observations can be made. Firstly, grain
yields were generally similar between
India and SSA in the early 1960s before
the Green Revolution began, which
indicates that the difference in agroclimatic conditions alone cannot explain
the large yield difference between the two
regions at present. Secondly, the yields of
sorghum and millet did not increase much
even in India and the yield gap between
the two regions is nil, which suggests that
the potential of a Green Revolution in
these crops is limited in SSA. Thirdly, the
current yield gap is substantial in the case

of wheat and rice, even though their yields
increased appreciably in SSA. Since wheat
can be produced primarily in a temperate
zone, its potential production area is
more limited than rice in SSA due to the
dominance of a tropical climate. Thus,
rice is likely to be critically important for
the expansion of grain production in SSA.
Furthermore, rice consumption has been
increasing dramatically in this region in
the last few decades. Lastly, the yield gap is
only modest in maize, even though maize
is the most important crop in SSA in both
production and consumption. It is likely
that the productivity gain in the maize
sector in SSA from a technology transfer
from Asia will not be large.

Although rice looks a promising
crop from the aggregate data, micro-level
evidence is needed to substantiate the
argument that rice is the most promising
crop in SSA. The first purpose of this study
is to analyze the potential of the rice Green
Revolution in SSA based on recently
completed case studies of rice-growing
households in Mozambique, Tanzania,
Uganda, and Ghana.3 The second purpose
is to draw up the implications of an
effec tive strategy for rice Green Revolution
in SSA. We believe that, if successful, the
rice Green Revolution can be a role model
for Green Revolutions in other grains,
particularly in maize production.

2

For example, sorghum and millet are grown in many countries in SSA but primarily in India in Asia.
Analytically, however, a comparison between tropical Asia as a whole and SSA does not lead to major
changes in our discussion (Estudillo and Otsuka 2013).
3
Senegal is also included in this project but the data collection has been delayed, so its analytical
results will be reported later. Note, however, that according to our preliminary survey, the average
irrigated rice yield in the Senegal River basin exceeds 5 tons per hectare, which is comparable to the
irrigated yields in Asia.

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