Rice Productivity and the “Social Paradox”: Producing More without Reducing Poverty

Abstract

Background and Aims: Social paradox is particularly noticeable in value chains for rice. In African food systems, rice is a vital staple and a significant employer in the production, processing, marketing, and service sectors. To document how rice yield gains co-move with monetary and nutritional well-being in Africa and whether these associations vary with trade exposure, electricity access, and the institutional environment. Study Design: Descriptive macro-panel analysis with country and year fixed effects, complemented by interaction terms and robustness checks for cross-sectional dependence. Place and Duration of Study: Forty-two African countries observed annually over 2008 to 2023, with estimation based on the common country-year sample defined by non-missing observations across variables. Methodology: The main explanatory variable is rice yield in logs. Outcomes are poverty incidence, poverty depth, mean consumption, and undernourishment. Models include fixed effects and macroeconomic, sectoral, infrastructural, and institutional controls. Conditional associations are examined via interactions and marginal effects at plausible moderator values. Inference robustness is assessed using Driscoll–Kraay standard errors. Results: Higher yields co-move with higher mean consumption but less favourable monetary poverty indicators. A 10 percent increase in yield is associated with about +0.57 percentage point in poverty headcount, +0.28 point in poverty gap, and +1.24% in mean consumption. The yield–undernourishment association is negative in baseline estimates but becomes imprecise with Driscoll–Kraay inference. Agricultural value added per worker shows more consistently favourable co-movements with consumption, undernourishment, and poverty. Electricity access structures the yield–welfare relationship, while rice import penetration does not clearly differentiate marginal effects. Conclusion: Yield gains are not uniformly aligned with improved monetary poverty outcomes despite higher mean consumption, consistent with heterogeneous transmission. Complementary measures that raise net profitability and broaden the distribution of gains remain important.