Social Desirability, Opportunism and Actual Support for Farmers' Market Organisations in Ethiopia

One of the striking issues in the literature on farmers' market organisations (FMOs) is that farmers generally report quite positive opinions regarding the services of their FMO, while, at the same time, actual sales reveal a much more reserved attitude. We argue that farmers may feel social and/or opportunistic pressure to express positive opinions concerning the FMO, to donors and policy-makers, which are not necessarily in line with their actions. This article proposes a list experiment method to control for this bias. The method shows that especially farmers who express strong support for the FMO seriously hesitate to speak freely

Drivers and triggers of international food price spikes and volatility

AbstractThe objective of this study is to explore empirical evidence on the quantitative importance of supply, demand, and market shocks for price changes in international food commodity markets. To this end, it distinguishes between root, conditional, and internal drivers of price changes using three empirical models: (1) a price spike model where monthly food price returns (spikes) are estimated against oil prices, supply and demand shocks, and excessive speculative activity; (2) a volatility model where annualized monthly variability of food prices is estimated against the same set of variables plus a financial crises index; and (3) a trigger model that estimates extreme values of price spikes and volatility using quantile regressions. The results point to the increasing linkages among food, energy, and financial markets, which explain much of the observed food price spikes and volatility. While financial speculation amplifies short-term price spikes, oil price volatility intensifies medium-term price volatility

Priority Agricultural Commodities for Expanding and Diversifying Intra-Regional Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa

This report explores the potential to diversify intra-regional trade in Eastern and Southern Africa countries (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and Burundi), with special reference to the COMESA regional market. More specifically, three critical issues were analyzed. First, the current performance and the potential to trade has been examined using several regional trade performance indicators including the production and trade similarities, and the competitiveness of the sample countries in the regional trade. The analyses revealed that there exists significant production and trade dissimilarities among the sample countries, which implies the existence of untapped potential for expanding agricultural trade in the region with tremendous consequences for smallholder producers. Second, the outlook for increasing trade and competitiveness under different policy change scenarios (reduction of cross-border trade barriers; lowering the overall cost of trading, and/or increasing productivity—crop yield) has been projected using a regional multi-commodity Market Model (ESA-EMM). This projection has indicated that the response to the policy changes and the potential for competitiveness differs across agricultural commodities and countries. Based on this deference, candidate commodities that could help countries expand their competitiveness and trade diversification have been identified. Third, the candidate commodities are prioritized based on multiple criteria that include not only regional trade potential but also the commodity’s contribution to economic growth, agricultural value addition, employment, and poverty reduction using country-level Computable General Equilibrium Model (CGE) and Micro-Simulation Models. The models simulations revealed that priority commodities that would increase the countries’ agricultural trade and other economic outcomes include both the conventional export crops such as coffee, tobacco, tea and oilseeds, and the staple crops such as maize and pulses. Maize has come out as a competitive and priority commodity for Ethiopia and Tanzania, not only to support the local food demand but also to supply for the regional market and improve the countries’ competitiveness. It was also learnt that there exists a huge potential for expanding regional trade in live animals and animal products

Råvareprisee og markedsinstitusjoner i Etiopia

This PhD Thesis comprises five chapters including an introduction and four separate papers. The overall objective of the thesis is to evaluate the performance of agricultural commodity markets in Ethiopia. Economists have long acknowledged the role of a properly functioning market in increasing productivity and enhancing food security. However, how to make markets work for everybody remains the concern of researchers and policymakers. In an attempt to identify market improving strategies, four separate studies are conducted. The studies apply an optimal mix of theoretical and empirical methods to derive relevant policy implications. The first study confirms that incoming food aid in Ethiopia is depressing commodity prices both in food deficit and surplus areas. The depressing effect is, however, higher for tradable commodities than non-tradable. The effect is also higher when food aid is shipped during surplus periods than during true-deficit periods. The second study evaluates the effect of speculation on price dynamics using the rational expectation theory and threshold-switching regression. The study indicates that commodity markets in Ethiopia are responsive to speculations. Speculative behaviors of traders and farmers appear to cause a structural break in the price formation process. The third paper applies principal-agent model and multinomial-switching regressions to examine the impact of interlinked contracts on smallholder’s market integration. This study concludes that interlinked contract that applies discretionary pricing motivates smallholders better than interlinked contract that uses collective bargaining with uniform pricing. The fourth paper assess the role of information uncertainty in explaining smallholders’ decision to engage in clientelism using repeated game model and binary estimation methods. The major conclusion drawn from this study is that lack of well-established market information system explains the emergence of relational market transactions. These transactions are payable in the short-term but may jeopardize the competiveness of commodity markets in the long run

Grants vs. credits for improving the livelihoods of ultra-poor: Evidence from Ethiopia

PRIFPRI3; ISI; Capacity Strengthening; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food SupplyAFR9 page

Farm power transition and access in Senegal: Patterns and constraints

This paper aims at documenting evidences on the patterns and constraints affecting the sequential and simultaneous transition of farm power use from manual to animal to engine. It also aims at exploring access to farm equipment through ownership and rental service. Based on a household data collected under the huge and ambitious project called ‘Senegal Agricultural Policy Project’, the result generally confirms the very low use of farm machinery powered by engines despite years of efforts to support agricultural mechanization programs. However, the use of improved farm equipment powered by animals has shown a sharp increase overtime. The study further demonstrated the variation of constraints in farm mechanization transitions defined by sources of power. While demand side constraints such as farm size and off-farm income are more important for machineries than animal plows, supply-side constraints such as rental overhead costs and membership to a producer’s organization are very critical for transition to engine power through facilitating rental service which is the dominant source of access to heavy machineries. Based on these findings, we discussed the strategic interventions that are needed to enhance and sustain agricultural mechanization uptakes in Senegal.Non-PRIFPRI5; DCAAF

Drivers and triggers of international food price spikes and volatility

PRIFPRI3; ISIESA

Repeated transaction in rural grain markets of Ethiopia

PRIFPRI3; ISI; CRP2; C.2 Institutions and Infrastructure for market developmentESARO; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM