Two decades after initiating sweeping market reforms in their agricultural sectors, governments across Sub-Saharan Africa continue to maintain an active role in staple food markets. At the heart of this highly interventionist approach to food market development is a persistent and widespread...

Nearly three decades after the initiation of agricultural market reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), subsidies for fertilizer and seed are once again the cornerstone of many SSA governments’ agricultural development and poverty reduction strategies. Zambia is a prime example. In the last...

Vibrant agricultural commodity exchanges will greatly enhance the performance of Africa’s agricultural sectors and contribute to overall economic development. Yet specific conditions in grain markets are required for agricultural commodity exchanges to develop.1 The absence or short-lived...

Sustainable intensification in crop and livestock production is the foundation for smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to a changing world, to respond to new economic opportunities, and to address poverty reduction and food security. For crop farmers, substantial gains in...

A new wave of “market smart” modern input subsidy schemes has emerged in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade with the promise of increasing input use and grain yields while building or complementing private sector efforts. We study the extent to which geographic and household level...

This report uses panel data on 1,267 smallholder households to monitor changes in their access to markets and services. We find that Kenyan smallholders’ proximity to infrastructure, markets, and services has improved markedly over the last decade. These improvements, however, have not been...