Zambia's record-breaking maize harvest of nearly 2.8 million metric tons (MT) in 2010 is a major achievement and a testimony to what input subsidies, output price incentives, and favorable weather can do to elicit a major supply response. Maize-growing smallholders harvested more than in...

Crop production forecasts are widely recognized as an important input into food balance sheets and for anticipating production shortfalls. However, the role of accurate crop production forecasting systems in mitigating food price instability and transitory food insecurity is often...

When food prices shoot over import parity, this often leads to social and political unrest and even the toppling of governments. If markets behaved efficiently and in the absence of trade barriers, food prices should not exceed the price in world markets plus the cost of importing it to domestic...

Key Points • Zambia’s maize crop grew by 48% between the 2009 and 2010 harvests, leading to the largest crop recorded in recent history. • Yield growth accounted for 59% of the maize production growth between 2009 and 2010. Expansion of area planted to maize explains an additional 23%,...

This study uses panel data from 1,142 Kenya smallholder households over four survey periods to examine the determinants of participation in land rental markets and to quantify the impact of renting land on households’ crop income and total income. We find that land rental markets in Kenya...

Without renewed attention to sustained agricultural productivity growth, most small farms in developing countries will become increasingly unviable economic and social units. Sustained agricultural productivity growth and poverty reduction will require progress on a number of fronts, most...

The development of agricultural commodity exchanges in Africa has become an increasingly popular strategy for addressing some of the ills plaguing African food markets, including poorly developed risk management systems, high transaction costs, and limited price discovery. However, despite...

Prepared for the COMESA policy seminar on “Variation in staple food prices: Causes, consequence, and policy options”, Maputo, Mozambique, 25-26 January 2010 under the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Marketing Project (AAMP)

Agriculture forms the foundation of Kenya’s economy. However, the information base on agriculture % including basic indicators on farmers’ input, production, and marketing behavior, household food consumption patterns, etc. % is weak and largely outdated. Agricultural policy is largely made...

This report provides an initial assessment of the impact of agricultural commodity taxes levied by local district authorities on the national objectives of food security, poverty alleviation and economic growth. A study was undertaken to provide government with a better understanding of the...