Cotton in Zambia: An Assessment of its Organization, Performance, Current Policy Initiatives, and Challenges for the Future

This paper grows out of earlier work on cotton by the Food Security Research Project. It is directed towards policy makers and private stakeholders in Zambia’s cotton sector, and has four main purposes: (a) To provide a detailed descriptive overview of the organization of the sector and of the behavior of key public and private participants in the sector; (b) To assess cotton’s role in smallholder livelihood strategies, and its competitiveness at the farm level with a key alternative crop–maize; (c) To critically evaluate recent policy initiatives in the sector and suggest key modifications that might be needed; and (d) To identify the primary challenges that the sector faces to ensure its future competitiveness in regional and international markets.food security, food policy, Zambia, cotton, smallholder livelihood, Crop Production/Industries, Q18,

Market-Oriented Strategies to Improve Household Access to Food: Experience from Sub-Saharan Africa

The objectives of this report are to identify market-oriented strategies to alleviate both chronic and transitory food insecurity, and to examine the interactions between short-run targeting mechanisms and longer-run strategies designed to alleviate the chronic causes of inadequate access to food. The main premise of the report is that sustained improvements in household access to food in Sub-Saharan Africa require the development of more reliable food and input markets that (a) create incentives to adopt cost-reducing investments at various stages in the food system; and (b) offer incentives for rural households to shift from a subsistence-oriented pattern of production and consumption to more productive systems based on specialization and gains from exchange. Sustained productivity growth in most parts of the world has typically entailed some form of structural transformation, which, in the historical development processes of other regions, has been a prerequisite for broad-based and sustained growth in productivity, real incomes and purchasing power throughout society. Structural transformation involves a movement away from subsistence-oriented, household-level production toward an integrated economy based on specialization and exchange. But specialization makes households dependent on the performance of exchange systems. The ability to capture the productivity gains from new technology and specialization thus depends on reducing the risks and uncertainty of market-based exchange, thereby facilitating greater participation in the types of specialized production and consumption patterns involved in the process of structural transformation. Section 3 presents empirical evidence from research conducted in Africa to draw conclusions about how the design of agricultural policies and transfer programs have affected household access to food in both rural and urban areas. Based on the foregoing, section 4 presents the following guidelines for the design of strategies to promote access to food in Africa: (1.) Focus on achieving productivity gains in the food system. (2.) Focus on how food and income transfer programs can be designed to promote the long-run development of the food system- the basis for providing food for most people over the long run in addition to providing food to people in the short run. (3.) Focus on reducing consumer food costs by expanding the range of products available to produce and consume. (4.) Focus on the cost and reliability of food supplies to rural areas as a component of non-farm, livestock, and other income diversification strategies designed to promote access to food over the longer run. (5.) Focus on developing local analytical expertise to help guide food system development.Food Security and Poverty, Downloads July 2008-June 2009: 12,

Enabling Small-Scale Maize Marketing and Processing to Assure Supplies of Low-Cost Staples

Crop Production/Industries, Downloads December 2008 - July 2009: 6,

Big sugar in southern Africa : rural development and the perverted potential of sugar/ethanol exports

This paper asks how investment in large-scale sugar cane production has contributed, and will contribute, to rural development in southern Africa. Taking a case study of the South African company Illovo in Zambia, the argument is made that the potential for greater tax revenue, domestic competition, access to resources and wealth distribution from sugar/ethanol production have all been perverted and with relatively little payoff in wage labour opportunities in return. If the benefits of agro-exports cannot be so easily assumed, then the prospective 'balance sheet' of biofuels needs to be re-examined. In this light, the paper advocates smaller-scale agrarian initiatives

Climate and southern Africa's water-energy-food nexus

In southern Africa, the connections between climate and the water-energy-food nexus are strong. Physical and socioeconomic exposure to climate is high in many areas and in crucial economic sectors. Spatial interdependence is also high, driven for example, by the regional extent of many climate anomalies and river basins and aquifers that span national boundaries. There is now strong evidence of the effects of individual climate anomalies, but associations between national rainfall and Gross Domestic Product and crop production remain relatively weak. The majority of climate models project decreases in annual precipitation for southern Africa, typically by as much as 20% by the 2080s. Impact models suggest these changes would propagate into reduced water availability and crop yields. Recognition of spatial and sectoral interdependencies should inform policies, institutions and investments for enhancing water, energy and food security. Three key political and economic instruments could be strengthened for this purpose; the Southern African Development Community, the Southern African Power Pool, and trade of agricultural products amounting to significant transfers of embedded water

Revisiting the 'Cotton Problem': A Comparative Analysis of Cotton Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa

The cotton sector has been amongst the most regulated in Africa, and still is to a large extent in West and Central Africa (WCA), despite repeated refirm recommendations by international donors. On the other hand, orthodox refirms in East and Southern Africa (ESA) have not always yielded the expected results. This paper uses a stylised contracting model to investigate the link between market structure and equity and efficiency in sub-Saharan cotton sectors; explain the outcomes of refirms in ESA; and analyze the potential consequences of orthodox refirms in WCA. We argue that the level of the world price and of government intervention, the nature of pre-refirm institutional organisation, as well as the degree of parastatal inefficiency, all contribute to making refirms less attractive to firmers and governments in WCA today, as compared to ESA in the 1990s.We illustrate our arguments with empirical observations on the perfirmance of cotton sectors across sub-Saharan Africa

The processed food revolution in African food systems and the double burden of malnutrition

African consumers have purchased increasing amounts of processed food over the past 50 years. The opportunity cost of time of women and men has increased as more of them work outside the home, driving them to buy processed food and food prepared away from home to save arduous home-processing and preparation labor. In the past several decades, this trend has accelerated with a surge on the supply side of the processing sector and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large private companies making massive aggregate investments. Packaged, industrialized, ultra-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a growing proportion of the processed food consumed. Also, in the past several decades, overweight and obesity have joined the long-standing high levels of stunting and wasting among children and extreme thinness among women of childbearing age. Together these phenomena have formed a double burden of malnutrition (DBM). The DBM has emerged as an important health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. The rise of the DBM and the increase in ultra-processed food consumption are linked. Policy makers face a dilemma. On the one hand, purchases of processed food are driven by long-term factors, such as urbanization, increased income, and employment changes, and thus policy cannot change the pursuit of convenience and labor-saving food. Moreover, much processed food, like packaged milk, is a boon to nutrition, and the processed food system is a major source of jobs for women. On the other hand, the portion (some 10–30%) of processed food that is ultra-processed is a public health challenge, and policy must address its detrimental effects on disease burden. The global experience suggests that double duty actions are most important as are selected policies focused on healthy weaning foods for addressing stunting and taxes on SSBs, nutrition labeling, and other measures can steer consumers away from unhealthy ultra-processed foods to addressing obesity and possibly child nutrition and stunting. We recommend that African governments consider these policy options, but note that the current extreme fragmentation of the processing sector, consisting of vast numbers of informal SMEs in sub-Saharan Africa, and the limited administrative/implementation capacity of many African governments require pursuing this path only gradually

Africa and the global carbon cycle

The African continent has a large and growing role in the global carbon cycle, with potentially important climate change implications. However, the sparse observation network in and around the African continent means that Africa is one of the weakest links in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. Here, we combine data from regional and global inventories as well as forward and inverse model analyses to appraise what is known about Africa's continental-scale carbon dynamics. With low fossil emissions and productivity that largely compensates respiration, land conversion is Africa's primary net carbon release, much of it through burning of forests. Savanna fire emissions, though large, represent a short-term source that is offset by ensuing regrowth. While current data suggest a near zero decadal-scale carbon balance, interannual climate fluctuations (especially drought) induce sizeable variability in net ecosystem productivity and savanna fire emissions such that Africa is a major source of interannual variability in global atmospheric CO(2). Considering the continent's sizeable carbon stocks, their seemingly high vulnerability to anticipated climate and land use change, as well as growing populations and industrialization, Africa's carbon emissions and their interannual variability are likely to undergo substantial increases through the 21st century

Coping Strategies in Post-War Rural Mozambique

This paper analyses post-war coping strategies by farm households in developing countries. The analysis is based on a portfolio model of activity choices in war-affected rural Sub- Saharan Africa. A case study using farm household survey data estimates the determinants of agricultural coping strategies in post-war Mozambique. Post-war coping strategies differ from pre- and mid-crisis coping strategies. War-affected households are forced to adopt very risky coping strategies that re-enforce their vulnerability. Households choose between market and non-market forms of exchange and even consider exiting markets entirely. Post-war reconstruction policy should focus on re-capitalizing households, providing public goods and establishing markets

Supermarkets and Beyond: Literature Review on Farmer to Market Linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

WorldAgInfo Project Literature ReviewThis paper reviews recent literature on selected issues that need to be considered in designing policies and programs to improve farmer-to-market linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Since the “supermarket revolution” has received wide attention in the professional and popular press since the early 2000s, this paper starts with a careful review of that literature. Yet expectations regarding supermarket growth in Africa and parts of Asia have cooled considerably over the past two years. For this reason, the discussion of supermarkets is cast in the broader context of retail modernization; we stress the interaction of supermarkets and more traditional marketing channels in African and Asian food systems, and suggest that these systems are likely to remain highly diversified for the foreseeable future. Additional topics include domestic and regional markets as foci of growth, market information (including commodity exchanges and modern information and communications technology - ICT), and contract farming for export crops. Given the rapid pace of change in marketing systems in developing countries, primary emphasis is placed on research since 2000