IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/afjare/347735.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is agricultural lime a profitable investment for African smallholders? Evidence from Rwanda

Author

Listed:
  • Jaleta, Moti
  • Vasco Silva, João
  • Ruganzu, Vicky
  • Mvuyekure, Simon Martin
  • Mujanama, Erick
  • Voss, Rachel
  • Chamberlin, Jordan
  • Baudron, Frédéric

Abstract

Soil acidity is a major constraint to crop production in tropical regions. Although agricultural lime is one option to remediate acid soils, there is limited information on the potential returns on investments to liming by smallholders. Using survey data collected from 261 households in Rwanda, we estimated the crop-specific yield response to lime application and associated financial benefits. The estimated average yield gain from lime ranged from 941 kg/ha to 1 579 kg/ha for Irish potato, 562 kg/ha to 709 kg/ha for maize, and 453 kg/ha to 520 kg/ha for beans. With the existing lime and farmgate crop prices, reliable returns on investment from lime were observed for Irish potato, while applying lime to maize and bean was only profitable at a 50% lime price subsidy. As maize and beans are the major staple crops in Rwanda, the subsidy for ag-lime use in improving crop productivity is highly justifiable. The results inform policy decisions in considering market-oriented crops and subsidies when promoting agricultural lime in acid soils under smallholder conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaleta, Moti & Vasco Silva, João & Ruganzu, Vicky & Mvuyekure, Simon Martin & Mujanama, Erick & Voss, Rachel & Chamberlin, Jordan & Baudron, Frédéric, 2024. "Is agricultural lime a profitable investment for African smallholders? Evidence from Rwanda," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 19(01), March.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:afjare:347735
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.347735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/347735/files/Is%20agricultural%20lime.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.347735?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:afjare:347735. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaaeaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.