Identification of pulling factors for enhancing the sustainable development of diverse agriculture in Myanmar

The study on Myanmar consists mainly of field surveys conducted in agro-ecologically distinct sites in two townships in Myanmar , namely Thonegwa Township in the delta area and Monywa Township in the central dry zone. Survey design covers the profiles of the study sites, respondents and their households, overall conditions of secondary farming, the marketing and industrial processing systems, the effect of agricultural diversification on poverty alleviation, risk mitigation and environmental conservation, policy impact, infrastructure and institutional support, and the potential and constraints for enhancing sustainable agricultural diversification at the study sites.International Development,

Impediments to agricultural growth in Zambia:

This paper has been prepared as part of the Zambia country study of the Macroeconomic and Regional Integration in Southern Africa (MERRISA) project and serves as a background paper for modeling exercises. The paper focuses on analyzing institutional constraints on the development of the agricultural sector in Zambia. It argues that by changing some of the rules and neglecting to integrate these changes into the complete institutional setting, policymakers have been unable to achieve their goals. Other constraints on Zambia's agricultural development are of a more technical nature. There are problems with Zambia's infrastructure. This paper argues that these are problems of the provision of public and merit goods mainly occurring in rural areas. Farmers emphasize their limited access to resources like credit, fertilizer, and draft animals. Although these problems could indicate market failures, it is the view of the authors that they are mainly due to transition uncertainties.Resource management., Infrastructure (Economics) Rural areas Zambia., Agricultural development., Agricultural resources.,

Agricultural policies in India

"Since the early 1990s, India has undergone substantial economic policy reform and economic growth. Though reforms in agricultural policy have lagged those in other sectors, they have nonetheless created a somewhat more open economic orientation. In this study, we evaluate the protection and support versus disprotection of agriculture in India. Our methodology involves examining market price support (MPS) for eleven crops, the expenditures on input subsidies benefiting farmers (for fertilizer, electricity and irrigation), and product-specific and total producer support estimates (PSEs) over the period 1985-2002. We draw on the extensive price-comparison and subsidy-measurement data sets and analysis developed earlier by Gulati and his co-authors, often using disaggregated analysis for representative surplus and deficit states. This allows us to explore how key cost adjustments impact the results. Overall, our results indicate that support for agriculture in India has been counter-cyclical. Support for agriculture has been rising when world prices are low (as in the mid 1980s and 1998-2002) and falling when world prices are high (as in the early and mid 1990s). Our results demonstrate the increased importance of budgetary payments for input subsidies in agriculture in recent years. Yet, in the aggregate for both price support and budgetary expenditures over the period 1985-2002 the counter-cyclical dimension of agricultural policy dominates a clear trend of movement from disprotection towards protection. Using different variants of MPS and PSE measurment we have extended earlier analysis to demonstrate the impact of key assumptions on the calculations. These assumptions we argue are important to consider. For example, in the standard approach, the MPS for the covered commodities is “scaled up” based on the share of the covered commodities in the total value of production. If the commodity coverage is less than complete, as is often the case, the scaling up procedure leads to a total MPS of greater absolute value than the MPS for the covered commodities. This can result in PSEs of different sign than the non-scaled up version but is inappropriate unless market price support for the commodities not covered is similar to that of the covered commodities. Furthermore, we find that the standard procedure of computing the MPS through a comparison of the domestic price to an adjusted reference price based on observed imports or exports can be problematic. This happens when trade volumes are relatively small. In such a scenario a reference price based on observed imports or exports can lead to misleading conclusions. To address the reference price issue, we follow Byerlee and Morris (1993). Essentially the approach adopted is to compute the level of protection or disprotection based on a counterfactual reference price chosen on economic criteria i.e. the adjusted reference price that would exist in the country if the policy interventions were removed. The relevant price can either be the autarky equilibrium price or the import or export adjusted reference price depending on the relationship among these prices. We apply this modified procedure for six crops (wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, sugar and groundnuts). The choice of the crops is dictated by the fact that India has been near self-sufficiency and there have been changes in the direction of trade over the period of analysis. The magnitudes of estimated support for agriculture obtained in this paper are important for several reasons. The estimates confirm that high levels of subsidies were required for India to export wheat or rice in recent years, a conclusion reached by several other studies. However, we report less disprotection of Indian agriculture in the 1990s than in earlier studies. Partly this difference is explained by the modified procedure for choice of a reference price. A large component of this difference can be accounted for by whether or not the scaling up procedure is invoked. There are also fertile areas for future research. Estimates of adjustment costs used in domestic-to-border price comparisons, such as transportation and processing costs or marketing margins, are crucial variables in the analysis and merit being re-examined and further updated. Resolving what are the most reasonable assumptions about reference prices, or extending the analysis to additional crops and livestock to reduce uncertainty in future assessments will also contribute to fuller understanding of the net stance of policy toward agriculture and how it has evolved over time" Authors' AbstractSouth Asia ,South Asia and Central Asia ,Agricultural policy ,Producer Support Estimates (PSEs) ,Agricultural support ,Agricultural production ,Scaling up ,

Post harvest needs assessment in the Teso and Lango farming systems of Uganda: Marketing systems analysis and farmers' perspectives

In November 1999, a Post Harvest Needs Assessment was conducted in the Teso and Lango fanning systems of Uganda. The needs assessment consisted of a farmer questionnaire and a rapid market assessment exercise. This report documents the findings from both activities: Part A identifies proposals for future activities; Part B concerns the marketing assessment; and Part C the farmer interviews

Risk management in agriculture

This monograph was written to be part of the series of studies commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture under the rubric of "State of Indian Farmer - A Millennium Study". On the basis of existing literature, this study documents the status of our knowledge on risks of agriculture and their management. Chapter 2 discusses the evidence on the nature, type and magnitude of agricultural risks. Chapter 3 discusses farmer strategies to combat risk. In addition to the mechanisms at the level of the farm household, the need to cope with risk can also affect community interactions and social customs. This is examined in Chapter 4. In chapter 5, we consider how production risks have been transformed by developments in the agricultural economy in the post-independence period. In chapter 6, we review the principal developments that have impacted on market risks.

Smallholder outgrower schemes in Zambia

The research was carried out in Zambia in March 1996 under the Overseas Development Administration's Crop Post-Harvest Research Programme. It followed earlier desk research into outgrower schemes in Sub Saharan Africa

A 1991 social accounting matrix (SAM) for Zimbabwe:

The 1991 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Zimbabwe that we document in this paper is intended to provide benchmark data for economy-wide analysis under the MERRISA Project. Its construction is based on a three-step process: (1) building a macro SAM that presents the aggregative features of the Zimbabwean economy and serves as a control matrix for the micro SAM; (2) disaggregation into a complete but unbalanced micro SAM; and (3) balancing the disaggregated and complete micro SAM using the cross-entropy approach. The macro SAM entries are based on aggregates from a recent, significant revision of the Zimbabwe national accounts for 1991. The structure of the micro SAM is a disaggregated version of the macro SAM. The outcome is an 88 by 88 matrix that includes 36 activities, 27 commodities, 9 factors of production (4 labor, 3 capital, and 2 land categories), 5 households groups, and one account each for enterprises, government, investment/saving, and rest-of-the-world. Among the significant features of the Zimbabwean economy that are explicitly taken into account in the SAM structure are the importance of agriculture, the distinction between smallholder and large-scale commercial farms, home consumption by smallholder farm households, and the large marketing margins that reflect inefficiencies in trade and transport infrastructure.Macroeconomics., Social accounting Zimbabwe.,

Domestic support to agriculture in the European Union and the United States

In this study, we outline the farm policy changes in the European Union, EU, and the United States, US, since 1996 and compare their levels of support under various policies. The producer support estimates for the EU are more than twice that of the US, although the value of EU agricultural production is only 30% more than the US production value. In the EU, reductions in the intervention (support) prices for cereals, oilseeds and beef sector have been compensated by increased direct payments, i.e., payments based on historical acreage and yield or animal head counts. In 1996, the US eliminated target prices and deficiency payments for major crops, and acreage set-sides for supply control. They have been replaced with fixed and emergency payments. However price floors (loan rate with deficiency payments) have been retained for major crops. The sugar and dairy sector policies of the EU and the US have undergone few changes since 1996....The initial EU and US agricultural proposals for the Doha round focused on reducing market access barriers and export subsidies, but refrained from limiting domestic support measures. Developing countries' effective opposition to these proposals led to the collapse of the 2003 WTO Ministerial Meeting at Cancun, Mexico. The recently announced Doha Work Program proposes complete elimination of export subsidies and significant reductions in market access barriers. In the case of domestic support, developing countries' views such as the reductions in product and non-product specific de minimis provisions, and the criteria for blue box payments are reflected in the proposal. At the same time, developed countries' views on the continued placement of direct payments in either blue or green box have been included in the proposal. However, agreement on the extent of reductions and the specific modalities is expected in the next 16 months. The final agreement, scheduled for presentation to members at the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2005, likely depends on whether or not the new proposals and their modalities would result in meaningful limits on domestic support.Agricultural price supports ,

The use of purchased inputs by small-holders in Uganda

The Natural Resources Institute has been conducting preliminary research on experiences with private sector provision of credit to small-holders for production inputs. The initial research focused on the cotton sectors in Uganda and Zimbabwe, where input credit different systems are in operation. The intention is to distil key conditions from these experiences with a view to identifying potential applications in other sectors. The research has highlighted the extremely low input/low output nature of most farming systems in Uganda, and very low use of even the most fundamental components of improved technology ie., improved varieties (either open-pollinated or hybrid seed) and fertiliser. There are a number of factors influencing this which can be categorised under four broad headings: affordability, physical access, awareness and commercial context. Access to credit influences affordability and can certainly play a role, but it is clear that other factors are equally important. Box 1 lists some of the issues which impinge on the use of purchased inputs

Rural Development in Botswana: A Case Study

Community/Rural/Urban Development,