NERICA Upland Rice: Seeds of Change for Female-Headed Households in Uganda? Johanna Bergman Lodin, Susan Paulson, and Magnus Jirström Abstract Recognizing that the adoption of new agricultural technology has different effects on different types of house- holds and social actors, this study examines how female- headed households growing New Rice for Africa (NERICA) upland rice in Hoima District, Uganda, compare with male-headed NERICA grower households with respect to the production, productivity, and marketing of the crop. We show that NERICA has become an important cash income earner for both household categories, which obtain similar levels of productivity, and identify factors that seem to have helped make it accessible to female-headed households: the perception of rice not solely as a commercial crop but also a food crop, a ready local market, and good performance without agro-chemical inputs. In spite of evidence that female-headed households are constrained by inferior access to land and by lower de facto sales price, we argue that NERICA provides opportunities for these households that may contribute toward more equitable production, produc- tivity, and marketing conditions between female- and male- headed households. [NERICA upland rice, production, marketing, female-headed households, smallholders, Uganda] Introduction New Rice for Africa (NERICA) is a group of high-yielding and stress-tolerant upland rice varieties developed by the Africa Rice Center to address small- holder poverty and food insecurity in Africa and to respond to the continent-wide rice challenge (Africa Rice Center (WARDA)/FAO/Sasakawa Africa Association [Africa Rice Center (WARDA)/FAO/ SAA] 2008). NERICA is a cultivar group of interspe- cific hybrid rice and not a genetically modified organ- ism. Research reported here explores how NERICA responds to specific concerns of female-headed house- holds (FHHs), households that have been afforded relatively little support by development program- mers, planners, and policy makers in fostering pro- duction and productivity growth and in building markets for their produce (Africa Rice Center 2008; Dey Abbas 1997; Doss 2001; Paris 1998; Quisumbing and Pandolfelli 2010). Our findings answer and also raise questions about whether NERICA production offers unique advantages and benefits to FHHs. Recent studies by the Africa Rice Center (e.g., Africa Rice Center 2008; Agboh-Noamshie et al. 2008; Diagne 2006; Diagne et al. 2009) document the pro- duction performance of NERICA in West Africa and chronicle positive shifts in household-level income among smallholder farmers adopting these new seeds. By comparing aggregate welfare outcomes (measured by production growth and household income gain) between female- and male-headed households (MHHs), they show that NERICA has been particularly beneficial to households headed by women and that earlier inequalities in rice productiv- ity between the two household categories are decreas- ing in the region. Although Uganda is one of the leading producers of NERICA in the world (Maseruka and Kalyango 2010) and a potential food basket of the subregion (Mohapatra 2009), efforts to systematically chart and evaluate the performance and livelihood impacts of NERICA in Uganda are scant (Bergman Lodin 2005; Johanna Bergman Lodin is with the Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. Susan Paulson is with the Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Magnus Jirström is with the Department of Human Geography, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. All three authors have spent significant time in the field, tracing conditions and strategies of smallholder farmers in response to changing technological and political economic horizons. They collaborated on the present article at Lund University, Sweden, advancing their shared body of work on causes and consequences of agricultural intensification with special attention to gender and generational difference and dynamics. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment Vol. 36, Issue 2 pp. 129–141, ISSN 2153-9553, eISSN 2153-9561. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/cuag.12040