Private standards are gaining in importance in global markets for high-value foods. We analyze and compare impacts of three sustainability oriented standards – Fairtrade, Organic, and UTZ – on the livelihoods of smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda. Using survey data and propensity score...

This paper investigates sources and determinants of agricultural growth in Africa, concentrating on the growth path during the last three decades. The analysis employs the broader framework provided by empirical growth literature and recent developments in Total Factor Productivity (TFP)...

Many countries in the world have adopted genetically modified organisms as products that can have great beneficial impact on agriculture, industry and trade. However, to date for the whole of Africa, only South Africa has commercialized genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Realizing the high...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/02/10.

Between 1983 and 1992, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) invested A$3 million in research to find a vaccine that could provide protection from Newcastle disease in chickens and be applied in village environments in developing countries. A further $160 000 was...

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...

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...

Striga is an indigenous parasitic weed that attacks cereals and other crops in Africa. In maize croplands alone, Striga infests over 2.3 million ha resulting in 1.6 million tons of grain loss worth US $383 million annually. An innovative approach to controlling the parasite was to induce...

There are well-founded fears that it is unrealistic to expect Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1) to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and to halve the proportion of people who suffer hunger by 2015. Recent efforts of African governments to meet the MDG1 have resulted...

Decades of research have led to substantially improved understanding of the nature of food insecurity. Until the food crisis of 2007/08, a combination of economic growth and targeted programs resulted in a steady fall in the percentage of the world’s population suffering from under-nutrition...