Since the early 1980s, dramatic changes in export commodity markets, shocks associated with resulting price declines, and changing views on the role of the state have ushered in widespread reforms to agricultural commodity markets in Africa. The reforms significantly reduced government...

Women in rural areas, and in particular female farmers, have significantly less access to financial services than their male counterparts. Such limited access is harmful to female farmers and their families and significantly impedes their ability to grow and prosper. Female farmers tend to have...

In most emerging markets, the lack of acceptable collateral is often cited as a key constraint on the provision of credit to agriculture. Three main types of collateral are typically used to finance agriculture: farmland, equipment, and agricultural commodities. In many economies, however, the...

This note aims at analyzing lessons learned from matching grants projects for farmers and agricultural SMEs and providing guidance to TTLs on successful design. It is part of a series of agriculture finance policy notes. This note has benefited from peer review comments by Mike Goldberg, Diane...

Vietnam's meteoric rise to become one of the world's largest coffee producers in world-record time has been matched by equally fast changes in policies and market structure. It has moved from a planned economy to a much more open market orientation and become one of Asia's fastest-growing...

More than 50 nations, almost all in the developing world, produce and export coffee, one of the world's most valuable traded commodities. Some of these countries are dependent on coffee exports for a very significant portion of their international trade and export income. Between 17 and 20...

A thorough analysis of the Colombian coffee sector prepared with diverse leading actors in the field. This report includes the history, structure, governance and the considerable impacts on poverty and livelihoods of a coffee sector organized like no other in the world.It is the basis of another...

A frank and thorough assessment of what has worked and what has not in one of the world's most important coffee producing countries. Prepared for the transition of a new presidency and federal administration by a team of leading experts from across the spectrum of thinking on the topic.The paper...

Over the past dozen years, policymakers have largely abandoned long-standing popular approaches for addressing risk in agriculture without fully resolving the question of how best to manage the negative consequences of volatile agricultural markets. The article reviews the transition from past...

Liberalization of tropical agricultural markets has brought globalization, in the sense that all producers now face world rather than domestic prices. Producer prices have tended to rise as a share of fob prices as intermediation costs and tax has declined. However, in conjunction with inelastic...