Successful agricultural development has resulted in substantial alleviation of poverty and food security in Asia and Latin America since the 1960s. Much of this success can be attributed to the introduction of high-yielding varieties of crops, especially wheat and rice, which have addressed the...

For African agricultural productivity to improve, governments and donors must invest in programs and policies that will improve the incentives and capacity of farmers to make investments that increase farm productivity and soil fertility while protecting the environment. With rapid population...

A wide variety of multilateral and bilateral agencies, private sector firms, and African governments have a need for high quality, reliable data on agricultural productivity. This paper identifies numerous situations where poor data lead to incorrect estimates of African land and labor...

Senegal has experienced a number of spurts in agricultural production and productivity growth since independence, yet average trends from 1960 through 1993 have been either stagnant (in terms of aggregate production and yields), or negative (in terms of real value of production). Although use of...

The objectives of this report are to identify market-oriented strategies to alleviate both chronic and transitory food insecurity, and to examine the interactions between short-run targeting mechanisms and longer-run strategies designed to alleviate the chronic causes of inadequate access to...

This paper identifies the factors driving the allocations of food aid in Ethiopia. We determine both how food aid is allocated across rural regions, reflecting the targeting criteria of the federal government, as well as how aid is allocated within regions, reflecting the decisions of local...

This report analyzes the effects of grain market reform and food subsidy elimination in Eastern and Southern Africa on access to food for low-income consumers. The report also assesses the potential to use "self-targeted commodities" to improve vulnerable groups access to food though market...