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...

Since the 2007–08 food crisis, many thoughtful analyses have addressed the causes and impacts of high and volatile international food prices and proposed solutions to the crisis. These studies have covered global as well as local food price dynamics and policy reactions. The food price problem...

The present paper studies the impact of market imperfections on heterogeneous firm output, productivity, and profit in the presence of food price volatility. Using a unique firm-level panel data set for about 20,000 agricultural producers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), we estimate the...

The objective of this paper is to present a framework and process that can be used by Ethiopians for strategic planning in the cereals system, to highlight the most important constraints to increased productivity and identify critical investments to alleviate them. The paper uses the framework...

The main question which this research originally sought to answer was whether or not inorganic fertilizers are generally profitable used alone on maize, or with pesticides on cotton, for small farmers in Zambia. Rather than give a definitive answer for each Zambian farmer, the authors developed...

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Directorate of Economics, Republic of Mozambique

Paper prepared for the Policy Workshop on Fertilizer Use and Marketing, organized by MINAGRI and USAID, Rwanda, 22-23 February 20001.

Institute of Agricultural Research of Mozambique Directorate of Training, Documentation, and Technology Transfer

The major objective of this study was to assess the performance of grain markets in Ethiopia at the individual market levels and for groups of markets which are spatially linked. By examining the nature of relationships among producer, wholesale, and retail prices in individual markets and among...

The 2006 – 2007 agricultural campaign was characterized by a good rainfall. As a result, cereal production has increased according to the survey conducted by CPS/DNSI.. The prices of cereals reflect this increase in production. To keep producers from selling their products at lower prices, it...