Fertilizer trade and pricing in Uganda

Liberalized fertilizer markets in eastern Africa typically deliver fertilizer to smallholder farming regions at prices that render its use unprofitable. Simultaneously, faced with little demand for fertilizer in these regions, fertilizer traders appear unwilling to invest in measures that might reduce farm-gate prices. A basic question throughout the region is therefore how to cost-effectively increase smallholders' access to fertilizer, under conditions of liberalized and privatised trade in the input. This paper explores that question for Uganda using data from a wide-ranging study of Uganda's fertilizer sub-sector. The prevailing system of fertilizer procurement and distribution is found to imply a market structure dominated by retail-level trade, high prices, and low net margins. The study concludes that there is no inherent pressures in the extant system of fertilizer procurement and distribution toward development of a wholesaling backbone that might allow capture of scale economies. But with imaginative and sustained investments in institutional innovation and strengthening, there is scope to reduce prices and increase net trading margins.Agribusiness,

Bridging research, policy, and practice in African agriculture

"Policy research on African agriculture is long on prescriptions for what needs to be done to spur agricultural growth but short on how such prescriptions might be implemented in practice. What explains this state of affairs? What might be done to correct it, and, most important, how? This paper addresses these questions via a comprehensive review and assessment of the literature on the role and impact of research in policy processes. Six major schools of thought are identified: the rational model; pragmatism under bounded rationality; innovation diffusion; knowledge management; impact assessment; and evidence-based-practice. The rational model with its underlying metaphor of a 'policy cycle' comprising problem definition and agenda setting, formal decision making, policy implementation, evaluation, and then back to problem definition and agenda setting, and so on has been criticized as too simplistic and unrealistic. Yet it remains the dominant framework guiding attempts to bridge gaps between researchers and policy makers. Each of the other five schools relaxes certain assumptions embedded within the rational model e.g., wholly rational policy makers, procedural certainty, well-defined research questions, well-defined user groups, welldefined channels of communication. In so doing, they achieve greater realism but at the cost of clarity and tractability. A unified portable framework representing all policy processes and capturing all possible choices and tradeoffs faced in bridging research, policy, and practice does not currently exist and is unlikely ever to emerge. Its absence is a logical outcome of the context-specificity and social embeddedness of knowledge. A fundamental shift in focus from a 'researcher-as-disseminator' paradigm to a 'practitioner-as-learner' paradigm is suggested by the literature, featuring contingent approaches that recognize and respond to context-specificity and social embeddedness. At bottom, the issue is how to promote 'evidence-readiness' among inherently conservative and pragmatic policy makers and practitioners and 'user-readiness' among inherently abstraction-oriented researchers." Author's AbstractPolicy research ,Agriculture Africa ,Agricultural growth ,Research Methodology ,Knowledge management ,evaluation ,

Back to the future: reversing recent trends for food security in Eastern Africa

"Recent trends in agricultural growth and food security in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA) have been discouraging. With very low labor productivity, yields, and growth rates, agriculture is unable to keep up with population growth or achieve the type of pro-poor growth needed to reduce poverty dramatically.Yet agriculture accounts for about half of the region's gross domestic product (GDP) and is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population. Behind this gloomy picture, however, lies agriculture's potential to be the engine for growth in ECA. What do the ECA countries need to do to effectively exploit the potential of agriculture and meet the needs of their burgeoning populations?" Author's SummaryAgricultural growth, Livelihoods, Poverty reduction,

BRIDGING RESEARCH, POLICY, AND PRACTICE IN AFRICAN AGRICULTURE

Policy research on African agriculture is long on prescriptions on what needs to be done to reverse negative growth trends but short on how such prescriptions might be implemented in practice. This paper addresses this state of affairs, focusing on the role and impact of research in agricultural policy processes.International Development,

Institutional economics as a theoretical framework for transformation in agriculture

Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Dialogues: the shaping of biotechnology in Southern Africa

"IFPRI and FANRPAN outlined and managed a highly participatory process involving high-level policymakers, senior representatives of a range of stakeholder agencies, and respected scientific leaders, who came together for an integrated series of roundtable discussions. The initiative is distinctive for having an explicitly process-based perspective in a framework involving many stakeholders.The first of three policy dialogues took place in April 2003 in Johannesburg, South Africa. A subsequent dialogue took place in Harare, September 20–21, 2004; a third is planned for 2005. In selecting topics for the first dialogue, IFPRI and FANRPAN identified five areas in which governments are required to make new and unfamiliar choices in order to regulate agricultural biotechnologies: intellectual property rights, biosafety, trade, food safety and consumer choice, and public research." from TextSouthern Africa, africa south of sahara, intellectual property, Agricultural biotechnology Government policy, Transgenic organisms, Genetically modified foods, Food supply Africa, Southern,

Fertilizer Trade under Market Liberalization: Preliminary Evidence from Kenya

This paper reports results of a countrywide survey of fertilizer traders undertaken in late September 1997 with the aim of identifying broad supply-side and demand-side factors influencing trade in inorganic fertilizers in Kenya. The next two sections describe the sampling and econometric procedures followed. Regression results are then reported. Implications of the results for policy and research round-out the analysis.International Relations/Trade,

AN ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES ON NURSERY PRODUCTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This paper develops Engel relationships to identify the determinants of household expenditures on nursery products and specifies their impact on consumer purchases of these goods for subregions of the United States. Household income, the number of single family home construction starts, educational level attained, and age composition of the population were found in influence nursery product expenditures. The economic variables of income and construction starts appear to be key factors affecting nursery purchases. To maintain a competitive edge, industry participants should monitor these variables carefully and adjust their production and marketing plans to meet changing market conditions.Consumer/Household Economics,

Ex-Ante Analysis of the Benefits of Transgenic Drought Tolerance Research on Cereal Crops in Low-Income Countries

This paper examines the ex-ante benefits of transgenic research on drought in eight developing countries, including the potential magnitude of private sector profits. The framework employs country-specific agroecological-drought risk zones and considers both yield increases and yield variance reductions when estimating producer and consumer benefits from research. Risk benefits from yield variance reductions are shown to be an important component of aggregate drought research benefits, representing 41 percent of total benefits across the eight countries. Further, estimated annual benefits of $US 93 million to the private sector suggest that significant incentives exist for private sector participation in varietal drought tolerance research.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Strategic priorities for agricultural development in Eastern and Central Africa:

"Agricultural development strategies delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. They are usually put forward by individual countries based on assessments of national needs. Seldom are attempts made to identify strategic priorities for agricultural development that cut across national boundaries. This gap is perhaps not surprising—organizations mandated to develop and implement regional agricultural development programs are rare. Although the gap may be understandable, it is also troubling. This report helps to fill that gap for eastern and central Africa (ECA), focusing on Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Recent trends and the current performance of agriculture in these countries expose a region progressively less able to meet the needs of its burgeoning population... The analysis... suggests that to avoid the bleak growth and poverty outcomes implied by business-as-usual in agriculture, ECA governments must invest in combinations of measures that (1) spur productivity growth, focusing on subsectors with high demand within ECA; (2) strengthen agricultural markets; (3) enhance linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors; and (4) exploit opportunities for regional cooperation." from Authors' AbstractAgricultural development, Agriculture Economic aspects, Agricultural development projects, Eastern Africa,