The situation analysis and perspectives on food security West Africa shows a widening gap between the needs of consumption and nutrition and food availability at Global countries, households and individuals. Low gains productivity in food production and import capacity are the major constraints...

The high increase in the prices of cereals, meat, and building materials is due to the weakness of stocks, increased exports, and the increase of internal demand. To attenuate the effect of the high increase in the price of cereals, meat and cement, the following measures are necessary: •...

Recent studies have shown that agricultural research can have high payoffs in Africa, but impact depends on how well technology fits with evolving needs and capacity in the agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. Structural adjustment policies (e.g., market liberalization, currency...

Michigan State University (MSU) has been active in Mali since 1985, with its first projects focusing on the analysis of agricultural development policies and the problems related to food security in Mali. MSU contributed or contributes to: -Helping support the agricultural market information...

The paper has several specific objectives. First, it identifies how fertilizer marketing costs and the types of fertilizers used have changed over the course of the liberalization process in Kenya. A second objective is to examine the fertilizer subsector in Kenya with a view to identifying...

In spite of vast expanses of the country’s land currently being uncultivated, there is increasing evidence that a surprisingly high share of rural smallholder households face land constraints that adversely affect their productivity and ability to participate in agricultural supply chains.

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...

Though Zambia has considerable agricultural potential, the sector’s contribution to growth and poverty reduction has been limited. The sector remains one of the most important employers of labour and remains the main source of livelihood for most rural households in Zambia. Thus key...

A number of problems plague the current Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP), including: late delivery of inputs; distribution of standardized inputs that may not be appropriate for all agro-ecological zones or soil types; crowding out of private sector; poor targeting, and; high cost to the...

Despite being framed as a key component of the nation’s poverty reduction strategy, evidence suggests that inputs distributed under Zambia’s Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) tend to be targeted to the least poor rural households.