This paper assesses the relationship between agricultural productivity and market participation and performance following an increase in market prices in Mozambique. We use panel data before and after the change in price regime to identify the relative importance of market access/participation...

This paper traces the trajectories of successful commercial smallholders operating under differing sets of market institutions. Analysis focuses on maize, cotton, and horticulture, three widely marketed crops with strikingly different market institutions. Maize receives intensive government...

In the late 1990s, several governments in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) embarked on various market reforms to improve commodity market performance. The success of such market reforms depends partly on the strength of the transmission of price signals between spatially separated markets and between...

Rapid urbanization in Zambia means that increasingly heavy demands are being placed on urban food marketing systems. Investment in these systems has been woefully inadequate for many decades, creating supply bottlenecks and health hazards that work against the interests of both farmers and...

Vibrant agricultural commodity exchanges will greatly enhance the performance of Africa’s agricultural sectors and contribute to overall economic development. Yet specific conditions in grain markets are required for agricultural commodity exchanges to develop.1 The absence or short-lived...

The main purpose of the study is to measure the level of influence exercised by the recent outbreak world prices of rice and maize, the prices of local products (rice and corn), also how to assess the competitiveness of local products has been affected by this increase in West Africa

Calculation of rice and maize parity prices in Niger.

Calculation of maize and rice parity prices in Senegal.

The global food crisis of 2007-08 has focused attention on food prices, pushing the topic to the top of the agenda of international organizations. For policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa, however, food prices have been an issue of economic importance and political sensitivity for decades. Of...

During the first quarter of 2008, the nominal prices of major food items have reached their highest level in nearly 50 years, while prices reached their actual level record in nearly 30 years. Indeed, prices of agricultural products rose sharply in 2006 and 2007 reported an increase more marked...