The world food and financial crises threaten to undermine the real incomes of urban consumers in eastern and southern Africa. This study investigates patterns in staple food prices, wage rates, and marketing margins for urban consumers in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia between 1993 and...

Zambia’s maize crop grew by roughly 48% between the 2009 and 2010 harvests, leading to the largest crop recorded in recent history. The 2009 maize harvest was also very good, making the 48% rise in 2010 even more remarkable. The forces driving that increase, however, remain widely debated....

The dramatic rise in world food prices since 2007 has commanded the world’s attention. However, in recent months, world food prices have fallen almost as rapidly as they had risen in late 2007 and early 2008, yet as is demonstrated in this report, domestic food price levels in many eastern and...

Rural poverty rates in Zambia have remained very high, at 80%, over the past decade and a half, whilst urban poverty rates have declined, from 49% in 1991 to 34% in 2006. Redressing this high rural poverty rate remains a government priority in the National Development Programs. However,...

Key Points • Zambia’s maize crop grew by 48% between the 2009 and 2010 harvests, leading to the largest crop recorded in recent history. • Yield growth accounted for 59% of the maize production growth between 2009 and 2010. Expansion of area planted to maize explains an additional 23%,...

Prepared for the COMESA policy seminar on “Variation in staple food prices: Causes, consequence, and policy options”, Maputo, Mozambique, 25-26 January 2010 under the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Marketing Project (AAMP)

Using comprehensive rural farm household longitudinal data from Zambia, this paper measures the impacts of prime-age (PA) adult morbidity and mortality on crop production and cropping patterns, household size, livestock and non-farm income. The paper adopts and extends the counterfactual...

Studies conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s generally found a positive correlation between socioeconomic characteristics such as education, income, and wealth and subsequent contraction of HIV. However, as the disease has progressed, the relationship between socioeconomic status and...

This study is designed to help policy-makers and development agencies in the formulation of AIDS prevention and mitigation strategies. The study determines the ex ante socioeconomic characteristics of individuals who die between the ages of 15 to 59 years of age (hereafter called “prime age”...

This study estimates the impacts of prime-age (PA) adult morbidity and mortality on crop production and cropping patterns, household size, livestock and non-farm income in Zambia using nationally representative rural farm household longitudinal survey data. The findings provide important...