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Author: Nicholas Minot
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
In the wake of the global food crisis of 200708 and additional price spikes since then, greater attention has been given to the welfare impact of food price increases in developing countries. The standard approach in this type of analysis, proposed by Deaton (1989), is based on income and expenditure data from household surveys. Given the widespread use of this method, it is important to revisit the assumptions behind it and examine the sensitivity of results to those assumptions. In this paper, we explore the distributional impact of higher maize, rice, and food prices in Ghana and analyze the robustness of those results to changes in several key assumptions. The results suggest that higher maize and rice prices have a relatively modest short-term impact on national poverty but significant effects on specific groups of households. As expected, urban households lose from higher grain prices, but a surprisingly large share of rural households also lose because they are net buyers. The results also suggest that the current policy of protecting domestic rice producers with an import tax does not contribute to national poverty reduction, in spite of the fact that rice growers tend to be poor. If we relax the assumption that households do not respond to the higher prices, the effects are more positive or less negative, but only modestly so. On the other hand, if we relax the assumption that producer and consumer prices rise by the same proportion, and instead assume a constant marketing margin, the results change substantially. Because producer prices now rise by a larger proportion than consumer prices, the impact of higher prices is much more positive. These findings highlight the need for more research on the effect of price spikes on marketing margins.
Author: Nicholas Minot
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
In the wake of the global food crisis of 200708 and additional price spikes since then, greater attention has been given to the welfare impact of food price increases in developing countries. The standard approach in this type of analysis, proposed by Deaton (1989), is based on income and expenditure data from household surveys. Given the widespread use of this method, it is important to revisit the assumptions behind it and examine the sensitivity of results to those assumptions. In this paper, we explore the distributional impact of higher maize, rice, and food prices in Ghana and analyze the robustness of those results to changes in several key assumptions. The results suggest that higher maize and rice prices have a relatively modest short-term impact on national poverty but significant effects on specific groups of households. As expected, urban households lose from higher grain prices, but a surprisingly large share of rural households also lose because they are net buyers. The results also suggest that the current policy of protecting domestic rice producers with an import tax does not contribute to national poverty reduction, in spite of the fact that rice growers tend to be poor. If we relax the assumption that households do not respond to the higher prices, the effects are more positive or less negative, but only modestly so. On the other hand, if we relax the assumption that producer and consumer prices rise by the same proportion, and instead assume a constant marketing margin, the results change substantially. Because producer prices now rise by a larger proportion than consumer prices, the impact of higher prices is much more positive. These findings highlight the need for more research on the effect of price spikes on marketing margins.
Author: Charles Ackah
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 9988647360
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Citing a paucity of empirical evidence on the poverty and distributional impacts of trade policy reform in Ghana as the main motivation for this volume, the editors (both of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the U. of Ghana) present eleven papers that combine theory and econometric analysis in an effort to assess linkages between globalization, trade, and poverty (including gendered aspects). Specific topics examined include manufacturing employment and wage effects of trade liberalization; the influence of education on trade liberalization impacts on household welfare; trade liberalization and manufacturing firm productivity; the impact of elimination of trade taxes on poverty and income distribution; food prices, tax reforms, and consumer welfare under trade liberalization; impacts on tariff revenues; and impacts on cash cropping, gender, and household welfare; Distributed in the US by Stylus. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Author: Nazaire Houssou
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24
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Book Description
Since 2007, the government of Ghana has been providing subsidized agricultural machines to private enterprises established as Agricultural Mechanization Services Enterprise Centers (AMSEC) to scale up tractor-hire services to smallholder farmers. Although farmers demand for mechanization has increased in recent years, most of this demand concentrates on land preparation (plowing) service. Using the firm investment model and recent data, this paper quantitatively assesses whether AMSEC as a private enterprise is a viable business model attractive to private investors. Even though the intention of the government is to promote private sector-led mechanization, findings suggest that the AMSEC model is unlikely to be a profitable business model attractive to private investors even with the current level of subsidy. The low tractor utilization rate as a result of low operational scale is the most important constraint to the intertemporal profitability of tractor-hire services. Our findings further support the argument of Pingali, Bigot, and Binswanger (1987), who indicated that mechanization service centers supported through governments heavy subsidy are not a policy option anywhere in the world, even in the current situation in Ghana. Although the tractor rental service market is a proper way of mechanizing agriculture in a smallholder-dominated agricultural economy such as Ghana, this paper concludes that the development of such a market depends crucially on a number of factors, including increased tractor use through migration across the two very different rainfall zones (north and south), increased tractor use through multiple tasks, and use of low-cost tractors. The government can play an important role in facilitating the development of a tractor service market; however, the successful development of such a market depends on the incentive and innovation of the private sector, including farmers who want to own tractors as part of their business portfolio, traders who know how to bring in affordable tractors and expand the market, and manufacturers in exporting countries who want to seek a long-term potential market opportunity in Ghana and in other west African countries.
Author: Matthias Kalkuhl
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319282018
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 620
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Book Description
This book provides fresh insights into concepts, methods and new research findings on the causes of excessive food price volatility. It also discusses the implications for food security and policy responses to mitigate excessive volatility. The approaches applied by the contributors range from on-the-ground surveys, to panel econometrics and innovative high-frequency time series analysis as well as computational economics methods. It offers policy analysts and decision-makers guidance on dealing with extreme volatility.
Author: Mateusz Filipski
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 28
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Book Description
Despite years of development interventions, agricultural productivity in Africa south of the Sahara still trails far behind all other continents, leaving many rural populations in dire poverty. This suggests that our understanding of the impacts of agricultural development projects is still imperfect; perfecting it is likely to be a crucial step in achieving development. Projects that raise agricultural productivity, in addition to directly affecting farmers, can have an impact on local prices, wages, and rents, especially in rural areas of Africa, which tend to be less-than-perfectly integrated with outside markets. Price changes, in turn, transmit project impacts to others within the local economy. This paper presents the findings of a local economywide impact evaluation of Feed the Future irrigation projects in the Morogoro region of Tanzania, using a local economy-wide impact evaluation (LEWIE) simulation model. The findings indicate that these irrigation projects can generate important indirect impacts within the region. The structure of local markets, as well as labor and land availability, shapes project spillovers in ways that point to future directions for development assistance in the region.
Author: Suresh Chandra Babu
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 52
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Book Description
Addressing emerging global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition challenges requires prudent evidence-based policymaking at the country level. Capacity for generating evidence remains a major constraint in the policy process in developing countries. We surveyed 30 countries to measure the capacity of their individuals, organizations, and policy process system to undertake food and agricultural policy research. Our Food Policy Research Capacity Index, constructed using measures of human capacity (PhD full-time equivalent researchers per million rural residents), human capacity productivity (publications per PhD full-time equivalent researcher), and strength of institutions (the government effectiveness pillar of the Worldwide Governance Indicators), showed substantial variation across countries, with the Republic of South Africa, Colombia, and Ghana scored far higher than countries with similarly sized rural populations such as Liberia, Laos, Burundi, and Afghanistan. Initial analysis showed that the index is strongly positively correlated with the Global Food Security Index and negatively correlated with the Global Hunger Index. Further work is planned to refine the indicators, particularly with regard to the effects of country size (population) and quality of the underlying data.
Author: Fan, Shenggen
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896295583
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 30
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Book Description
This food policy report presents a typology of the diverse livelihood strategies and development pathways for smallholder farmers in developing countries, and offers policy recommendations to help potentially profitable smallholders meet emerging risks and challenges. Main Findings Smallholder farmers in developing countries play a key role in meeting the future food demands of a growing and increasingly rich and urbanized population. However, smallholders are not a homogeneous group that should be supported at all costs. Whereas some smallholder farmers have the potential to undertake profitable commercial activities in the agricultural sector, others should be supported in exiting agriculture and seeking nonfarm employment opportunities. For smallholder farmers with profit potential, their ability to be successful is hampered by such challenges as climate change, price shocks, limited financing options, and inadequate access to healthy and nutritious food. By overcoming these challenges, smallholders can move from subsistence to commercially oriented agricultural systems, increase their profits, and operate at an efficient scalethereby helping to do their part in feeding the worlds hungry.
Author: Mr. Christian Bogmans
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 155775246X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
We study how two aspects of food insecurity - caloric insufficiency and diet composition - are affected by aggregate economic fluctuations. The use of cross-country panel data allows us to adopt a global prospective on the identification of the macroeconomic determinants of food insecurity. Income shocks are the most relevant driver of food insecurity, displaying high elasticities at the early stages of economic development. The role of food price shocks is more limited. Social protection has a direct effect and mitigates the impact of income shocks. Effects are highly heterogeneous across a range of structural characteristics of the economy, highlighting the role of distributional aspects and of food import dependency.
Author: Thaddée Badibanga
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
This paper analyzes the effectiveness of local-level (territory) multistakeholder platforms using data from 55 CARGs in 23 randomly selected territories in three provinces (Bandundu, Bas-Congo, and Kinshasa) of the DRC. The first CARG was established in 2008, and the survey was conducted three years later, from August to October 2011.
Author: Cheryl Doss
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 22
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Book Description
To support gender analysis in agriculture, household surveys should be better designed to capture gender-specific control and ownership of agricultural resources such as male-owned, female-owned, and jointly owned assets. This paper offers guidelines on how to improve data collection efforts to ensure that women farmers are interviewed and that their voices are heard. Researchers need to clarify who should be interviewed, how to structure the interview, and how to identify which people are involved in various activities, as owners, managers, workers, and decisionmakers. It is important not simply to assume that one particular person does these activities based on social norms, but instead to ask the questions to allow for a range of answers that can demonstrate how the gender patterns in agriculture are changing. To assist in these efforts, the paper provides an overview of relevant questions to include, emphasizing that whenever questions are asked about ownership and access to resources, answers should be associated with individuals. Finally, collecting data on the institutions that are related to agricultural production and marketing allows analysis of the gender-based constraints and opportunities that they present.
