It is argued that dairying is vital to future viability of many small farms in East Africa and that high transactions costs for dairy production and marketing limit participation by asset- and information-poor smallholders. Case studies from Kenya and Ethiopia illustrate the role of dairy...

The author argues that African rural areas behave differently from rural areas in fully commercialized market economies. In commercialized economies, price signals quickly induce factor flows, including items such as investment and technological change. A need for more food is quickly translated...

This paper investigates empirically the factors that influence real agricultural wage rates in Ghana, based on 1957 to 1991 data. The Johansen cointegration framework is used to examine long-run relationships among agricultural and urban wage rates, the domestic terms of trade between...

"This essay describes the views of Philippines livestock sector stakeholders concerning the events and issues associated with the rapid rise in hog and poultry production, based on rapid reconnaissance interviews and gray literature from studies in Southern Luzon, Iloilo and Northern Mindanao,...

Farm-level diversification, the adoption of alternative income-generating activities by farm households, is rarely deemed an explicit objective by economists. Where agricultural transformation has occurred, markets function well and agriculture is a waning portion of overall national product,...

During the past two decades, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa undertook extensive economic reforms to reduce the role of the government and increase the role of the market in their economies. Because of the importance of the agricultural sector in the region, agricultural market reforms...

"Since the early 1980s, almost all African governments have embarked on economic reform programs to reduce state intervention in the economy and to allow markets to play a larger role. In the agricultural sector these programs were designed to eliminate price controls on agricultural...

"Food safety issues have attracted international attention because they play an increasingly important role in determining whether developing countries have access to export markets.At the same time, food suppliers in developing countries face the challenge of improving food safety for their...

This brief reviews the extensive evidence on agricultural market reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa and summarizes the impact reforms have had on market performance, agricultural production, use of modern inputs, and poverty. It offers eight recommendations for completing the reform process and...