The Potential Returns to Oilseeds Research in Uganda: The Case of Groundnuts and Sesame

The study which follows is an ex-ante analysis of expected returns to investment in agricultural research on groundnuts and sesame in Uganda. Studies have shown that it generally takes a minimum of six to ten years for new technologies to begin to have an impact on agricultural production practices. In the case of Uganda, Michigan State University was asked to measure the impact of a program which only began the process of rehabilitating the collapsed national agricultural research system in 1985 and began support for commodity research on groundnuts and sesame as recently as 1989 and 1991. As a result, the assessment which follows relies upon the projection of expected future benefits. While every effort has been taken to make reasonable projections based on the limited available information, no prediction of the future can ever be made with certainty. For this reason, the results should be considered indicative at best.