Wide, weather-induced fluctuations in maize production lead to recurrent food shortages in Zambia's maize consuming regions, while the cassava-growing regions of the north enjoy stable food production, even in drought years. Noting this striking correlation between drought vulnerability and the...

Africa has inherited highly arbitrary political borders that vastly complicate current efforts to accelerate agricultural growth and reduce hunger. Because Africa’s inherited political borders arbitrarily partition agro-ecological zones and natural market sheds, current country borders serve...

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,...

Africa has inherited highly arbitrary political borders that vastly complicate current efforts to accelerate agricultural growth and reduce hunger. Because Africa’s inherited political borders arbitrarily partition agro-ecological zones and natural market sheds, current country borders serve...

The study surveyed 127 households from Central, Eastern, Luapula, Northern, and Southern Provinces of Zambia. The primary objective was to explore life-trajectory patterns and key drivers of welfare change. Households were classified based on long term poverty dynamics i.e., how they perceived...

Cassava supplies roughly 30% of all calories consumed in Mozambique, making it the country’s most important food security crop. Over the past several decades, growing urbanization and shifting demand patterns have led to growing opportunities for cassava processing and commercialization. This...

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...

This paper aims to develop and test methods for spatial mapping of population, food production, consumption, and marketed quantities in Africa. As an initial, exploratory exercise, the paper examines the spatial pattern of population, food production, consumption, and trade in the three...

Prepared by Food Security Group, Michigan State University,

Distributed as: Appendix 1. Background Paper for Agriculture and Lands. African Ministers Meeting, April 2009. Prepared under the Food Security III Cooperative Agreement (GDG-A- 00-02-00021-00) between the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, and...