Abstract
Sub-Saharan African economies depend heavily on agriculture. Seed from improved varieties and other inputs are imperative to the transformation of the agricultural sector from subsistence farming to small-scale commercial agriculture and thus to increasing food security on the continent. Farmers make the decision to adopt seed from improved varieties based on a number of seed attributes. These range from tangible attributes such as input costs and yield to intangible attributes such as trust in seed from improved varieties. In the course of adoption decisions, social dynamics involving trust can over-ride objective evaluations of tangible attributes. This makes it difficult to design sustainable adoption policies in an intuitive way. For this purpose we develop a system dynamics model and combine it with conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis allows us to elicit smallholder farmers’ choice preferences in detail and to add precision to the structure of the model. The simulation framework helps to improve our understanding concerning the dynamic implications of accumulation processes relating to trust and skill. We test this approach with empirical data for maize in Malawi. Model simulations demonstrate that effective adoption stimulation policies should focus on measures that build trust in improved maize varieties instead of increasing their potential yield even further and in this way contribute to food security.
This article has previously been published as: Kopainsky, B., Tröger, K., Derwisch, S., & Ulli-Beer, S. (2012). Designing Sustainable Food Security Policies in Sub-Saharan African Countries: How Social Dynamics Over-Ride Utility Evaluations for Good and Bad. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 29(6), 575–589. doi:10.1002/sres.2140
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Notes
- 1.
For a historical overview of food security policies in Malawi see Harrigan (2008).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the German Development Agency GTZ for financial support of KT as a CAS-IP intern and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ICRISAT for financial and logistical support in Malawi. The paper benefitted from comments by and the general support of Dr. Victoria Henson-Apollonio. BK was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers. The views and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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Kopainsky, B., Tröger, K., Derwisch, S., Ulli-Beer, S. (2013). Social Dynamics Overriding Utility Evaluations for Good and Bad: Implications for the Design of Sustainable Food Security Policies in Sub-Saharan African Countries. In: Ulli-Beer, S. (eds) Dynamic Governance of Energy Technology Change. Sustainability and Innovation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39753-0_9
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