Summary This paper uses small-scale farm survey data from five countries of eastern and southern Africa to highlight four under-appreciated issues: (i) how land distribution patterns constrain the potential of crop technology and input intensification to enable many small farms to escape from...

Small-scale assemblers are both the most vilified and least understood actors in food value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on data from Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, this article explores how maize assemblers influence the market access conditions of small-scale farmers. Assembly...

Summary The new variant famine (NVF) hypothesis postulates that HIV/AIDS is eroding rural livelihoods and making agrarian communities more sensitive and less resilient to drought and other shocks. NVF has become a high profile but controversial part of the literature on HIV/AIDS and food crises,...

Summary Government action during food crises in southern Africa frequently exacerbates the problems, driving food staple prices well beyond import parity. We argue that an inability to make credible commitments, due largely to a lack of trust between public and private sectors, contributes to...

This paper critically examines the dimensions of market access. Using farm panel survey data from Kenya, we investigate changes in ten indicators of market access during the 1997–2010 post-liberalization period. We find major improvements in certain market access conditions and little change...