Many African governments responded to the dramatic increases in international and domestic grain prices of 2008 and 2009 through a mixture of trade policy changes and input/output market subsidies. In the case of Mali, the Government put in place a rice promotion program at the beginning of the...

This paper examines how the fertilizer sector in general, and farmers’ demand for fertilizer in particular, has evolved since the introduction of fertilizer sector reforms in Ethiopia. There is much debate in the agricultural development literature about whether fertilizer use in Africa is...

This paper aims to identify the geographic extent of major staple food market sheds in West Africa as well as the major trade corridors that link surplus producing areas with the deficit markets they serve. The method employed combines data on the spatial distribution of rural and urban...

This chapter focuses on how changes in the rules regarding who could compete in rice milling in the ON combined with technological change in rice production and new macro-economic policies (particularly the CFA franc devaluation) to lead to a transformation of rice production and marketing in...

Evaluating the impact on market performance of investments in agricultural market information systems (MIS) face several methodological challenges. These fall into two broad categories: (a) defining the dimensions of market performance to measure (which is a function of whom the MIS is designed...

Improving the Impact of Market Reform on Agricultural Productivity in Africa: How Institutional Design Makes a Difference Abstract: This paper reviews the emerging empirical record of agricultural marketing policy reform and agricultural productivity, drawing from research on food access and...

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how Malian traders of coarse grains (millet, maize, and sorghum) have reacted to the cereals market reforms since 1981. The focus is on the coarse grains trade because these cereals historically have comprised the majority of the cereals consumed by...

The purpose of this paper is to review the Malian experience with cereals market reforms over the past 18 years and evaluate its contribution to agricultural transformation in Mali. We especially emphasize the importance of the interaction between sectoral reforms, macroeconomic reforms, and...