Given heavy dependence on rainfed maize production, countries in East and Southern Africa must routinely cope with pronounced production and consumption volatility in their primary food staple. Typical policy responses include increased food aid flows, government commercial imports and stock...

Prepared by Food Security Group, Michigan State University,

Distributed as: Appendix 1. Background Paper for Agriculture and Lands. African Ministers Meeting, April 2009. Prepared under the Food Security III Cooperative Agreement (GDG-A- 00-02-00021-00) between the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, and...

The coming 2005/06 maize harvest promises to be a good one, certainly better than last season. Market prices have begun falling, and the question now is how far they are likely to fall. Government currently has a maize export ban in place. This short note aims to assess the likely price levels...

By law, US food aid relies on commodity procurement in the US. A powerful political coalition of US farm groups, shippers and relief agencies vigorously supports these in-kind food aid donation. As an alternative, local procurement of food aid, in Africa, has attracted growing interest because...

Cassava production has grown rapidly in Zambia since the early 1990’s. Available evidence suggests that volumes of traded cassava have been increasing roughly twice as fast as production. Yet this cassava production boom could stall unless commercial markets for it develop. To help accelerate...

Given heavy dependence on rainfed maize production, Zambia must routinely cope with pronounced production and consumption volatility in their primary food staple. Typical policy responses include increased food aid flows, government commercial imports and stock releases, and tight controls on...

1) Maize prices are rising rapidly in 2008 and are fast approaching import parity levels. 2) Maize traders, millers and farmers all agree that Zambia will likely require imports by early 2009 in order to avoid domestic maize supply shortages. 3) Official food balance sheets appear to have...