Socioeconomic Impacts of Alternative Peanut Production Marketing Systems in Senegal (UNC 36)

Approach

The goal of UNC 36 was development of human capacity for economic and socioeconomic analyses (data collection, analysis, and application). Areas of concern are peanut production and farm efficiency, peanut cultivation and profitability, technology adoption, aflatoxin/gender/health related aspects in peanut cultivation, and farm-level efficiency. Other themes of interest were democracy and decentralization, community development, soil management, and fertilizer use.

Achievements

Interaction with L’École nationale d’Économie appliquée (ENEA) enabled them to practice better collection and use of farm data, including the use of modern coding and data entry techniques. This process became repeatable on a yearly basis and the focus shifted to a more rigorous system of data analysis. This new capability of staff for data management has been significant and used by the staff to increase the production of technical papers to disseminate the results to policy makers. The resulting papers encompass a range of topics, including the impact of technical innovation through the use of new peanut varieties, the pricing and marketing of agricultural products (peanut), optimizing farm planning and poverty levels, technical efficiencies in peanut production/processing, and a range of descriptive analyses. In the U.S., the project team gained additional experience in collecting, managing, and analyzing data in situations with developing country conditions imposed. This enhanced capability would be transferrable to other countries in the region. This growth in experience has extended to other departments at the University of Connecticut.

Focus

Consumer values