An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related...

Many of the agricultural input subsidy programs (ISPs) currently being implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa include among their objectives raising farm incomes and reducing rural poverty. However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the extent to which ISPs are achieving these objectives....

Raising agricultural productivity to meet growing food demands while increasing the resilience of rain-fed farm systems to climate variability is one of the most pressing contemporary development challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Anchored on the three core principles of minimum tillage...

Wheat consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is increasing rapidly, faster than any other major food grain. Between 2000 and 2009, per capita wheat consumption in SSA increased at a rate of 0.35 kilogram (kg)/year, outpacing maize and rice. Total wheat consumption increased by nearly 650,000...

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/04/09.

This paper develops a conceptual model of farmers’ production decisions in the context of dual output marketing channels (e.g., government and private sector) when prices at harvest time and the availability of one of the channels are unknown at planting time. It then uses the operationalized...

We test the hypotheses that subsidies on hybrid seed change maize production, total household income, the severity of poverty, and relative deprivation among smallholder maize growers in Zambia. The analysis contributes to the literature by measuring the quantitative effects of seed (as compared...

Only a small percentage of well-capitalized smallholders are able to sell maize to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) and take advantage of the maize price support. For example, in the 2007/08 marketing year, only 10% of smallholders sold maize to the FRA and these households had larger landholdings,...

The Farmer Input Support Program (FISP, formerly the Fertilizer Support Program) has expanded the scale of its fertilizer distribution from 48,000 metric tons (MT) in 2002/03, when the program started, to nearly 183,000 MT in the 2012/2013 farming season. Yet, after more than a decade of input...

Targeted fertilizer subsidies are growing in popularity in Sub-Saharan Africa and are a pillar of the Government of the Republic of Zambia’s (GRZ’s) agricultural sector strategy. For example, over the 2004 to 2011 fiscal years, the budget allocation to the Fertilizer Support Programme (FSP)...