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

This report uses panel data on 1,267 smallholder households to monitor changes in their access to markets and services. We find that Kenyan smallholders’ proximity to infrastructure, markets, and services has improved markedly over the last decade. These improvements, however, have not been...

Zambia’s population clusters tightly in cities along the north-south line of rail and in the primarily rural areas of Eastern Province (Figure 1). Staple food consumption and purchases are similarly concentrated in these heavily populated clusters (Figures 4 and 5). Across the border, several...

The paper advances the view that if global markets "worked" as theory suggests, then the answer to the question posed would be in the affirmative. Six reasons are given why this does not occur, namely: (1) the prevalence of trade manipulation; (2) the nature of markets in poor countries; (3)...

The importance of food standards in global agricultural trade has increased strongly, but the effects are uncertain. Several studies argue that these standards imposed by high-income countries diminish the export opportunities for developing countries and concentrate the benefits of trade with...