Past government interventions have distorted the input supply sector, undermining the economic base, and deterring the private sector from responding to the farm level demand for goods and services. These distortions are gradually being dismantled, but greater efforts are required to promote the efficient operation of a competitive private seed sector. Not all positive impacts of agricultural research are easily captured by a ROR analysis that focuses primarily on benefits from increased production. For example, agricultural research on maize and oilseeds has important gender implications for the Ugandan farming system and the distribution of income within the household. All of the commodities examined are less firmly situated within the male sphere of influence than are the more traditional cash crops such as coffee, cotton, tea, and tobacco.
Women participate fully in the production and marketing of maize and oilseeds.
Another benefit that is difficult to quantify is the extent to which research investments have not only led to an immediate research output, but have also strengthened the human capital base and institutional capacity of the country. Institutional and human capital developments are investments that will have positive payoffs far into the future and across a broad spectrum of commodities and research efforts. The history of research in Uganda illustrates very well the impossibility of turning research off and on. It takes only a short lapse in research support to result in massive losses in human and physical capital that will require painful and expensive new investments to overturn. Finally, the prioritization of research efforts between different commodities has important regional equity implications.