IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0219327.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smallholders’ coping mechanisms with wheat rust epidemics: Lessons from Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Moti Jaleta
  • Dave Hodson
  • Bekele Abeyo
  • Chilot Yirga
  • Olaf Erenstein

Abstract

Crops are variously susceptible to biotic stresses–something expected to increase under climate change. In the case of staple crops, this potentially undermines household and national food security. We examine recent wheat rust epidemics and smallholders’ coping mechanisms in Ethiopia as a case study. Wheat is a major food crop in Ethiopia widely grown by smallholders. In 2010/11 a yellow rust epidemic affected over one-third of the national wheat area. Two waves of nationally representative household level panel data collected for the preceding wheat season (2009/10) and three years after (2013/14) the occurrence of the epidemic allow us to analyze the different coping mechanisms farmers used in response. Apart from using fungicides as ex-post coping mechanism, increasing wheat area under yellow rust resistant varieties, increasing diversity of wheat varieties grown, or a combination of these strategies were the main ex-ante coping mechanisms farmers had taken in reducing the potential effects of rust re-occurrence. Large-scale dis-adoption of highly susceptible varieties and replacement with new, rust resistant varieties was observed subsequent to the 2010/11 epidemic. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to identify the key factors associated with smallholder ex-ante coping strategies. Household characteristics, level of specialization in wheat and access to improved wheat seed were the major factors that explained observed choices. There was 29–41% yield advantage in increasing wheat area to the new, resistant varieties even under normal seasons with minimum rust occurrence in the field. Continuous varietal development in responding to emerging new rust races and supporting the deployment of newly released resistant varieties could help smallholders in dealing with rust challenges and maintaining improved yields in the rust-prone environments of Ethiopia. Given the global importance of both wheat and yellow rust and climate change dynamics study findings have relevance to other regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Moti Jaleta & Dave Hodson & Bekele Abeyo & Chilot Yirga & Olaf Erenstein, 2019. "Smallholders’ coping mechanisms with wheat rust epidemics: Lessons from Ethiopia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-23, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0219327
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219327
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219327
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219327&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0219327?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel P. Bebber & Mark A. T. Ramotowski & Sarah J. Gurr, 2013. "Crop pests and pathogens move polewards in a warming world," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 3(11), pages 985-988, November.
    2. Marcel Fafchamps, 1992. "Cash Crop Production, Food Price Volatility, and Rural Market Integration in the Third World," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(1), pages 90-99.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Euler, Michael & Jaleta, Moti & Gartaula, Hom, 2024. "Associations between women’s bargaining power and the adoption of rust-resistant wheat varieties in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ecker, Olivier & Hatzenbuehler, Patrick L. & Mahrt, Kristi, 2018. "Transforming agriculture for improving food and nutrition security among Nigerian farm households," NSSP working papers 56, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Tesfaye, Wondimagegn & Tirivayi, Nyasha, 2020. "Crop diversity, household welfare and consumption smoothing under risk: Evidence from rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Momanyi, Denis & Lagat, Prof. Job K. & Ayuya, Dr. Oscar I., 2016. "Analysis of the Marketing Behaviour of African Indigenous Leafy Vegetables among Smallholder Farmers in Nyamira County, Kenya," MPRA Paper 69202, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jan 2016.
    4. Barton, Madeleine G. & Terblanche, John S. & Sinclair, Brent J., 2019. "Incorporating temperature and precipitation extremes into process-based models of African lepidoptera changes the predicted distribution under climate change," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 394(C), pages 53-65.
    5. Ruben, Ruerd & Pender, John, 2004. "Rural diversity and heterogeneity in less-favoured areas: the quest for policy targeting," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 303-320, August.
    6. Haile, M.G. & Kalkuhl, M., 2014. "Volatility in the international food markets: implications for global agricultural supply and for market and price policy," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 49, March.
    7. Del Prete, Davide & Ghins, Léopold & Magrini, Emiliano & Pauw, Karl, 2019. "Land consolidation, specialization and household diets: Evidence from Rwanda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 139-149.
    8. Luca Tiberti & Marco Tiberti, 2015. "Rural Policies, Price Change and Poverty in Tanzania: An Agricultural Household Model-Based Assessment," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 24(2), pages 193-229.
    9. Andre Croppenstedt & Markus Goldstein & Nina Rosas, 2013. "Gender and Agriculture: Inefficiencies, Segregation, and Low Productivity Traps," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 79-109, February.
    10. Fafchamps, Marcel & De Janvry, Alain & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 1995. "Transaction Costs, Market Failures, Competitiveness and the State," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183396, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Chen, Kevin Z. & Meilke, Karl D. & Turvey, Calum G., 1996. "The Economics of Generic Income Stabalization Schemes," Working Papers 123558, University of Guelph, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    12. Subramanian, Arjunan & Qaim, Matin, 2006. "Competition, Kinship or Reciprocity? Village Experiments in Alternative Modes of Exchange," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25434, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Brenton, Paul & Portugal-Perez, Alberto & Regolo, Julie, 2014. "Food prices, road infrastructure, and market integration in Central and Eastern Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7003, The World Bank.
    14. Marshall Burke & Lauren Falcao Bergquist & Edward Miguel, 2019. "Sell Low and Buy High: Arbitrage and Local Price Effects in Kenyan Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 785-842.
    15. Deepananda Herath & Alfons Weersink, 2007. "Peasants and plantations in the Sri Lankan tea sector: causes of the change in their relative viability ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(1), pages 73-89, March.
    16. Blake, Adam & Gomez-Plana, Antonio Gomez & Latorre Munoz, María C., 2005. "Macroeconomic effects of foreign direct investment in the Spanish economy," Conference papers 331357, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    17. KAMINSKI Jonathan & THOMAS Alban, 2009. "Commodity Reform and Extensive Production Growth: Evidence from Burkinabè cotton farmers," LERNA Working Papers 09.01.277, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    18. Kaminski, Jonathan, 2008. "Changing Incentives to Sow Cotton for African Farmers: Evidence from the Burkina Faso Reform," Discussion Papers 45779, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    19. Barrett, Christopher B., 1996. "On price risk and the inverse farm size-productivity relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 193-215, December.
    20. Christophe Gouel, 2013. "Rules versus Discretion in Food Storage Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1029-1044.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0219327. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.