Accurate information on farmer and consumer behavior is the foundation for Identifying public investments and policies that can effectively promote national food security and income growth objectives. This report synthesizes recent findings on smallholder crop marketing behavior and urban...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/28/11. Former title: Indirect Effects of Microfinance: A Field Experiment on Formal Savings Expansion and Informal Safety Nets of the Ultra-Poor

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...

Accurate information on farmer and consumer behavior is the foundation for identifying public investments and policies that can effectively promote national food security and income growth objectives. This policy brief summarizes recent findings from a study on smallholder crop marketing...

This brief reviews results of applied research regarding the role of government in staple food markets in East and Southern Africa. The purpose of the brief is to draw lessons for Mozambique as it decides how to use the grain storage silos it has been building since 2009. The authors suggest...

Deteriorating food security status is primarily a local phenomenon resulting from failures in food systems and inadequate incomes. Technological advances in agriculture have led to declining long-term trends in food prices, which have assisted in improving diets. It is projected that in the...

Free trade has become a modern-day creed, accepted by both wealthy industrialized countries and many governments of developing countries as the generator of economic growth, development and employment. However, free trade has also been condemned by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in...

This study analyzes the implications of increasing population density in Kenya’s rural areas on smallholder production and commercialization. Using data from five panel surveys on 1,146 small-scale farms over the 1997-2010 period, we use econometric techniques to determine how increasing rural...

Paper to be presented at the Comesa policy seminar“Food price variability: Causes, consequences, and policy options"on 25-26 January 2010 in Maputo, Mozambiqueunder the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Markets Project (AAMP)

Calculation of maize and rice parity prices in Guinea.