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Despite African consumers under-consuming nutrient dense fruits and vegetables (FV) and animal products (AP), and the farm production and supply chains of these products are fraught with constraints that keep them from operating optimally, we find abundant recent evidence of dynamism in these sectors. To wit: (1) consumption of these products in levels and shares is already substantial and growing rapidly; (2) supply of these products is growing rapidly, just not yet much faster than population growth; (3) supply growth is manifested in a number of countries by dynamic “meso booms” with diffusion of farming and growth in midstream ("Hidden Middle") value chain segments; these booms are “grass roots” driven, without subsidy or management by government or NGOs or large companies. We reviewed recent survey-based evidence of these booms and discussed the drivers. The policy implications are the need for governments to invest in the conditions we found to be enabling these booms, that is, roads and wholesale markets and electrification and other infrastructure hard and soft.
Fruits & vegetable value chains (F&V VC) in Nigeria hold significant potential to continue toward sustainable, inclusive food system transformation. Domestic food system growth, including that of F&V, remains crucial in achieving a healthy food environment and serving as a source of various micronutrients. There is a need for bundles of innovations to address multiple challenges along F&V VC in Nigeria, characterized by a set of challenges that are unique to developing countries and F&V. V&F VC consists of many small actors, farmers, and traders, whereby limited vertical coordination can lead to significant efficiency loss along the value chain. Seasonal and temporal variations in supply-dem...
Sustainable intensification is predicated on climate-smart agricultural input adoption. We test strategies for promoting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural inputs in Nigeria with a private sector firm. We disentangle the effects of price discount promotions (25 percent discounts) relative to the firm’s standard “business as usual” marketing package. We find that the standard marketing package increases the adoption of climate-smart urea super granule (USG) fertilizer by 24 percentage points while reducing prilled urea utilization by 17 percentage points. Discounts increase adoption of USG by an additional eight percentage points, but are not profitable for the input supply firm as a scalable marketing strategy. Although treatment reduces nitrogen runoff damages valued between USD 43 and 113 per hectare, it did not lead to increased rice yields for farmers.
While there is growing evidence of the impact of targeted subsidies on private input demand, as far as we are aware no empirical studies have examined the spillover effects of targeted subsidies for just one input on the use of other complementary inputs with which there is low substitutability. Consequently, this study begins to fill this gap by exploring the effect of increasing access to subsidized fertilizer on farmers use of improved seed in Nigeria.
Crossing the Divide examines the nature, causes, and consequences of population movements between the rural and urban sectors of developing countries. Using nationally representative, micro-level data from seventy-five countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean over the course of several decades, Robert E.B. Lucas provides the most comprehensive and definitive treatment of internal migration currently available.
This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 analyses a key element of agrifood systems transformation: the change of patterns in food supply and demand. Several studies have discussed this topic, but the current one takes an innovative perspective of analysis, considering these changes with a spatial perspective using the urban rural catchment areas (URCA) approach to analyse changes in food expenditure across the rural–urban continuum, using Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) of 11 African countries. The analysis is preceded by a literature review of agrifood value chains transformation stages, drivers and current situation, focused in low-...
Agriculture continues to play an important role in African economies. According to the African Development Bank, agricultural activities comprise around 15 percent of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) and agricultural employment represents around 58 percent of total employment in Sub-Saharan Africa. The region’s population is expected to double to 2 billion people by 2050. Along with expected income growth, the population increase will lead to a substantial rise in food requirements. To meet food demand, FAO estimates that agricultural production would have to increase 112 percent between 2013 and 2050. Meeting this demand will not be easy, as agricultural productivity in SSA ...
Coffee is one of the major crops produced in Honduras. This country is the world’s sixth largest producer and the largest producer in Central America. Its contribution to the economy cannot be over stated: it accounts for 5% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 26% of the agricultural GDP. It is also the second most important source of foreign currency after international money transfers, bringing 1.165 million USD in the 2020/2021 harvest (IHCAFE 2021). Currently, up to 120,000 Honduran farmers produce coffee, 95% of which are smallholder farmers that produce less than 5000 pounds of coffee yearly (Christian Bunn et al. 2018). The sector employs an estimated 1,1 million people directly. Many more depend on it indirectly (Mogrovejo 2020). Its production is geographically dispersed, being grown in 15 of the 18 departments and in 221 of the 298 municipalities (IHCAFE 2021).
This report provides an update on global progress towards the targets of ending hunger (SDG Target 2.1) and all forms of malnutrition (SDG Target 2.2) and estimates on the number of people who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Since its 2017 edition, this report has repeatedly highlighted that the intensification and interaction of conflict, climate extremes and economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with highly unaffordable nutritious foods and growing inequality, are pushing us off track to meet the SDG 2 targets. However, other important megatrends must also be factored into the analysis to fully understand the challenges and opportunities for meeting the SDG 2 targets. One such me...
Stylized facts set agendas and shape debates. In rapidly changing and data scarce environments, they also risk being ill-informed, outdated and misleading. So, following higher food prices since the 2008 world food crisis, robust economic growth and rapid urbanization, and climatic change, is conventional wisdom about African agriculture and rural livelihoods still accurate? Or is it more akin to myth than fact?The essays in “Agriculture in Africa – Telling Myths from Facts” aim to set the record straight. They exploit newly gathered, nationally representative, geo-referenced information at the household and plot level, from six African countries. In these new Living Standard Measureme...