It seems paradoxical that until recently, developed countries have continued subsidizing agriculture even though their agricultural sectors had been declining in relative importance since the middle of the 20th century. What drives support for agricultural protection—the broad array of...

This study evaluates the impact of Heifer International’s livestock donation program in the Copperbelt Province in Zambia. Using a panel data of 300 households and 4 survey rounds, this analysis assesses the impact of dairy cow, meat goat, and draft cattle donation programs on poverty and food...

Climate change will directly affect food availability and security. Because food production is fundamentally a biological process that is a function, in part, of temperature and moisture, the agricultural sector’s potential vulnerability is particularly large. While there is ongoing scientific...

During the Global Food Price Crisis of 2007-2011, millions of people suffered from hunger because food had become expensive. To cope with this problem, the governments of several countries decided to establish public food reserves in order to stabilize domestic prices. In this paper we develop a...

Numerous national transfer programs around the world are designed with uniform benefit schedules imposed by central governments, but implemented by local governments. The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, the second largest safety net in Sub Saharan Africa, is one such program....

Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have been among the most active participants in the negotiation of regional and bilateral FTAs. The countries of the region are members of 73 of the 259 FTAs notified to the WTO as currently in force, with 29 of these agreements containing tariff...

International prices of most staple food commodities in 2008 reached a remarkable level that had not been seen since late 1970’s. Food commodity prices are projected to remain on higher levels over the next decade, supported by firm demand, unfavorable weather conditions, slowing growth in...

We empirically address the implications of biofuel policy regarding major grains, to the subsequent evolution of the markets for calories from the three major grains, maize, wheat and rice. The implied market variables, namely, market price, consumption, and stocks, using a structurally...

This paper builds a model determining optimal capacities of diversion dams or water transfer projects. The model incorporates stochastic inflows to the dams and the role of the dam capacity in reducing overflows, and gives a closed-form expression of the marginal benefit of capacities....

The bifurcation of Zambia's agricultural land markets prevents smallholder farmers from participating in modern food marketing channels. High transaction costs in terms of time and financial resources make conversion of customary land into commercial land title prohibitively expensive for...