African governments and international development groups see boosting productivity on
smallholder farms as key to reducing rural poverty and safeguarding the food security of farming and
non-farming households. Prompting smallholder farmers to use more fertilizer has been a key tactic.
Closing the productivity gap between male and female farmers has been another avenue toward
achieving the same goal. The results in this paper suggest the two are related. Fertilizer use and maize
yields among smallholder farmers in Uganda are increased by improved access to markets and
extension services, and reduced by ex ante risk-mitigating production decisions. Standard ordinary
least squares regression results indicate that gender matters as well; however, the measured
productivity gap between male and female farmers disappears when gender is included in a list of
determinants meant to capture the indirect effects of market and extension access.