Zambia’s maize crop grew by roughly 48% between the 2009 and 2010 harvests, leading to the largest crop recorded in recent history. The 2009 maize harvest was also very good, making the 48% rise in 2010 even more remarkable. The forces driving that increase, however, remain widely debated....

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%,...

The dramatic rise in world food prices since 2007 has commanded the world’s attention. However, in recent months, world food prices have fallen almost as rapidly as they had risen in late 2007 and early 2008, yet as is demonstrated in this report, domestic food price levels in many eastern and...

Food and social safety nets have a history as long as human civilization. In hunter gatherer societies, food sharing is pervasive. Group members who prove unlucky in the short run, hunting or foraging, receive food from other households in anticipation of reciprocal consideration at a later time...

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...

From 2010 through 2012 harvest seasons, Zambian farmers produced three consecutive maize bumper harvests. The total maize production during this period was 8.6 million metric tonness, of which 4.6 million metric tonnes was a marketable surplus (CSO/MAL various years). This far exceeded the...

Wheat consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is increasing rapidly, faster than any other major food grain. Between 2000 and 2009, per capita wheat consumption in SSA increased at a rate of 0.35 kilogram (kg)/year, outpacing maize and rice. Total wheat consumption increased by nearly 650,000...

Only a small percentage of well-capitalized smallholders are able to sell maize to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) and take advantage of the maize price support. For example, in the 2007/08 marketing year, only 10% of smallholders sold maize to the FRA and these households had larger landholdings,...

Livestock products and fish form an important component of urban consumers’ diet accounting for about one third of the total monthly budgetary expenditure on food. The budgetary share of livestock products increases with affluence or household income while the opposite is true for fish; 2) The...