Steven Haggblade

ABSTRACT 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 United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Sub-Saharan Africa is the last region to undergo a nutrition transition and can still avoid its adverse health outcomes. The article explores emerging responses to "bend the curve" in sub-Saharan Africa's nutrition transition to steer public health outcomes onto a healthier trajectory. Early responses in 3 countries at different stages of food system transformation are examined: South Africa-advanced, Ghana-intermediate, and Uganda-early. By comparing these with international experience, actions are proposed to influence nutrition and public health trajectories as Africa's food systems undergo rapid structural change. Arising from rapid urbanization and diet change, major public health problems associated with overweight are taking place, particularly in South Africa and among adult women. However, public health responses are generally tepid in sub-Saharan Africa. Only in South Africa have policy makers instituted extensive actions to combat overweight and associat...

... forwards and backwards in the channels to capture any significant differential effects between alternative channels. ... important contributions to development work. They have helped to fill a ... valued at economic prices, small-scale or intermediate technologies are ...

ABSTRACT 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 of its potential to reduce landed costs and speed delivery times. For this reason, many food aid donors, other than the US, have switched to local and regional procurement of food aid commodities. This paper reviews experience with local and regional food aid procurement in Zambia. The study focuses primarily on experience of the World Food Programme (WFP), the agency with the most extensive experience conducting local and regional procurement in Africa. WFP’s experience suggests that local or regional procurement of food aid offers significant savings, in both commodity costs and delivery times. On average, maize procured in Africa costs 30% to 50% less than white maize imported from the US and arrives 1 to 2 months faster than commodity imports from the US.

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 this coming season, with and without an export ban.

"Past successes in African agriculture can point the way to promising avenues for achieving similar success in the future. Drawing lessons from past success requires identifying a range of successful and less successful episodes and then studying and comparing them. To identify a broad range of successful episodes in African agriculture, our analytical team launched an expert survey, polling more than 1,000 African agriculture specialists. In conducting this review, we defined 'success' as: a significant, durable change in agriculture resulting in an increase in agriculturally derived aggregate income, together with reduced poverty and/or improved environmental quality. From the responses, we, together with our advisory group, selected a dozen successful episodes for in-depth review and dispatched case study teams to investigate them. Although these episodes differ widely in terms of instigators of change, points of intervention, levels of subsidy involved, food and exp...

local capacity building, between the Agricultural Consultative Forum, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, and Michigan State University’s Department of Agricultural Economics. This paper is co-published in collaboration with the Southern Africa Regional Strategic

tiques des Mnages RAZAFINDRAVONONA Jean - - ii PREFACE La lutte contre la pauvret Madagascar constitue l'un des principaux objectifs exprims dans le Document Cadre de Politique Economique (DCPE) du Gouvernement Malagasy. La ralisation de cet objectif exigera des actions multiples et concertes des diffrents partenaires du dveloppement conomique et social (pouvoir public, les secteurs privs, les organisations non gouvernementales) diffrents niveaux -- macro-conomique, sectoriels, rgionaux, et mme au niveaux des mnages et des individus. Ce rapport constitue le premier d'une srie des travaux analytiques qui ont pour but d'tudier en profondeur le lien entre la politique conomique en gnral et la pauvret, afin d'aider les dcideurs identifier des leviers et points d'intervention favorisant une croissance conomique quitable et durable. Ces travaux analytiques sont entrepris conjointement par l'Institut National de la Statistique (INSTAT), l'Institut Malagasy des T...

This paper aims to develop and test methods for spatial mapping of population, food production, consumption, and marketed quantities in Africa. As an initial, exploratory exercise, the paper examines the spatial pattern of population, food production, consumption, and trade in the three countries of Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This largely descriptive initial work will lay the empirical foundations for future analytical work modeling regional trade flows of food staples. By mapping population, food production, and trade flows, the paper aims to help policy makers better understand and anticipate spatial interactions in staple food markets. Through visual presentation of market information, these spatial mapping tools offer prospects for animating an ongoing dialogue among public and private stakeholders on key market flows, key bottlenecks, and key opportunities for improving food security in good and bad harvest years.

The current emphasis in the development community on demonstrating policy impact requires a better understanding of national policymaking processes to recognize opportunities for, and limits to, generating policy change. Consequently, this paper introduces an applied framework, named the kaleidoscope model, to analyze drivers of change in the food security arena, with a specific emphasis on agriculture and nutrition policies. Focusing on five key elements of the policy cycle—agenda setting, design, adoption, implementation, and evaluation and reform—the model identifies key variables that define the necessary and sufficient conditions for policy change to occur. These variables were inductively derived through an extensive review of the secondary literature on episodes of policy change in developing countries across a broad range of policy domains related to food security, including agriculture, education, healthcare, nutrition, and social protection. The advantages of the framework...

Using primary data from a survey of expert opinion, this paper identifies key successes emerging in African agriculture. Among these, major commodity-specific successes identified include breakthroughs in maize breeding across Africa, sustained gains in cassava breeding and successful combat of its disease and pests, control of the rinderpest livestock disease, booming horticultural and flower exports in East and Southern Africa

Page 1. Food Aid , Government Polizy and Regional Trade: The Zambian Experience DRAFT – not for distribution or citation 1 Food Aid, Government Policy and Regional Trade: The Zambian Experience Paul Dorosh, Simon Dradri and Steven Haggblade 1 I. Introduction ...

Rural poverty rates in Zambia have remained very high, at 80%, over the past decade and a half, whilst urban poverty rates have declined, from 49% in 1991 to 34% in 2006. Redressing this high rural poverty rate remains a government priority in the National Development Programs. However, solutions have proven elusive. Solid empirically based information on dynamics that have improved the welfare of small-scale farm households in Zambia, combined with an agenda for disseminating this information in public discourse, offer prospects for generating a more transparent and pro-poor policy orientation. Using longitudinal data collected from 4,286 households which participated in three nationwide surveys conducted over seven years, in 2001, 2004, and 2008, we examine the factors associated with chronic and transient poverty and use the results to draw implications for designing policies and programs for alleviating rural poverty and promoting income growth for rural Zambia households.

• Maize production varies widely from year to year, given Zambia’s heavy dependence on rainfed cultivation. Thus consumers face wide swings in availability of their primary food staple. • Typical public responses include increased food aid inflows, government commercial imports and stock releases, and tight controls on private sector trade. While intended to improve domestic supply, these public responses can inadvertently exacerbate price instability and food insecurity for Zambian consumers. • Two key private sector responses – private cross-border maize trade and consumer substitution of alternate food staples (such as cassava) for maize - can also help to moderate food consumption volatility. • Together, private imports and increased cassava consumption could fill roughly two-thirds of the maize consumption shortfall facing vulnerable households during drought years. • But policy changes – including more open borders and greater transparency in public import and pricing decision...

Concern about humanitarian crises in southern Africa, especially in light of the surge in world food prices since 2007, has been accompanied by calls for direct government action in food markets. This paper reviews how Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique handled private food markets during the food crises of 2001/02, 2002/03, and 2005/06, which may provide important lessons for the management of future crises. Lack of trust between government and traders can lead to behavior that undermines the interests of each and harms consumers and farmers; Malawi and Zambia have persistently fallen into this trap while Mozambique has partially avoided it. Empirical policy analysis can make an important contribution to resolution only within a consultative process involving a broad range of (often fractious) stakeholders.

ABSTRACT tiques des Mnages RAZAFINDRAVONONA Jean - - ii PREFACE La lutte contre la pauvret Madagascar constitue l'un des principaux objectifs exprims dans le Document Cadre de Politique Economique (DCPE) du Gouvernement Malagasy. La ralisation de cet objectif exigera des actions multiples et concertes des diffrents partenaires du dveloppement conomique et social (pouvoir public, les secteurs privs, les organisations non gouvernementales) diffrents niveaux -- macro-conomique, sectoriels, rgionaux, et mme au niveaux des mnages et des individus. Ce rapport constitue le premier d'une srie des travaux analytiques qui ont pour but d'tudier en profondeur le lien entre la politique conomique en gnral et la pauvret, afin d'aider les dcideurs identifier des leviers et points d'intervention favorisant une croissance conomique quitable et durable. Ces travaux analytiques sont entrepris conjointement par l'Institut National de la Statistique (INSTAT), l'Institut Malagasy des Techniques

Since 1996, a growing coalition of stakeholders from the private sector, government and donor communities has promoted a new package of agronomic practices for smallholders in Zambia. The conservation farming (CF) system they advocate involves: dry-season land preparation using minimum tillage methods (either ox-drawn rip lines or hand-hoe basins laid out in a precise grid of 15,850 basins per hectare);

... In farm input supply, procurement economies derived from bulk fertilizer imports, regional logistics platforms and intra-Africa regional trade can reduce the farm-level price of imported fertilizer by as much as 50 percent (Gregory and Bumb, 2006; Morriss et al., 2007). ...

ABSTRACT Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) varieties are ethnobotanically classified by farmers into two distinct classes—“sweet” or “bitter”—based on their taste, most often reflecting the inherent cyanogenic glucoside potential and intended end use. Varietal preference based on general utilization as well as more targeted end use for preferred local and improved varieties is poorly understood and not well documented. The objectives of this study were to investigate prevailing varietal preferences based on utilization and the biochemical composition of local and recently improved cassava varieties. Interviews were conducted with farmers to document the existing varieties, their origin and taste classification, and processing in relation to end use. Biochemical composition was determined for flour samples with particular emphasis on color and perceived dryness. Of the nine varieties identified, four were classified as local, while the rest were classified as improved varieties. Two varieties were classified as bitter, and the rest were classified as sweet based on end use. The classification dichotomy based on taste is an important factor in determining potential toxicity. Labile varieties that are easily affected by microenvironmental factors were classified as bitter. Reasons for preference and utilization focus as much on the leaves for use as vegetables as on the roots. The taste classification of the roots determines how and whether they are to be processed. The varieties “Mweulu” and “Tanganyika” were perceived by farmers as having excellent characteristics for making the staple dish “nshima,” reflected by their high carbohydrate contents. The variety “Bangweulu” was identified as having “bigger and starchier” roots in interviews, and the biochemical assay verified these observations. The flour sample analysis revealed crude protein content ranged from 4.86% to 7.09%. Cluster and principal component analyses showed four groupings, with the single Malawian variety exhibiting the greatest differences from the Zambian clones, while the improved varieties bred from a single mother line displayed the closest similarities. The high energy and carbohydrate values of the nine varieties provide a good basis for acceptance; however, factors such as shelf life, storage, and other postharvest qualities such as susceptibility to weevil attacks also play a determining role in the acceptance of improved cassava varieties.

ABSTRACT 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 of its potential to reduce landed costs and speed delivery times. For this reason, many food aid donors, other than the US, have switched to local and regional procurement of food aid commodities. This paper reviews experience with local and regional food aid procurement in Zambia. The study focuses primarily on experience of the World Food Programme (WFP), the agency with the most extensive experience conducting local and regional procurement in Africa. WFP’s experience suggests that local or regional procurement of food aid offers significant savings, in both commodity costs and delivery times. On average, maize procured in Africa costs 30% to 50% less than white maize imported from the US and arrives 1 to 2 months faster than commodity imports from the US.