"Maize, the second most globally important staple crop after wheat, originated in Mexico, where it is typically grown as part of a set of associated crops and practices called the milpa system. This ancient mode of production is practiced today in ways that vary by cultural context and...

Banana is a staple crop in Uganda. Ugandans have the highest per capita consumption of cooking bananas in the world (Clarke 2003). However, banana production in Uganda is limited by several productivity con¬straints, such as insects, diseases, soil depletion, and poor agronomic practices. To...

This empirical study uses data from 1970 to 2010 to estimate levels of neopatrimonialism in Malawi. We then test how neopatrimonialism has affected policy-induced agriculture producer incentives. Three dimensions are used to measure neopatrimonialism – systematic clientelism, a power...

This study has been conducted in order to generate evidence of the visibility of exit from farm input subsidies in an African context. The study simulates the impact of alternative exit strategies from Malawi’s farm input subsidy program on maize markets. The simulation is conducted using...

In this paper we assess (a) consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a recently developed variety of maize that is high in provitamin A in the context of a public health intervention and (b) the performance of three elicitation mechanisms in estimating WTP in a field experiment in Ghana....

The successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s–80s was a major achievement of African agriculture but was predicated on a government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing, the provision of services to maize growers, and a...

Recent increases in cereals prices raise questions about agricultural priorities in Ghana. This report presents an application of the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) to the problem of identifying opportunities to enhance agriculture’s contribution to economic growth and poverty alleviation...

"Recent increases in cereals prices raise questions about agricultural priorities in Ghana. This report presents an application of the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) to the problem of identifying opportunities to enhance agriculture’s contribution to economic growth and poverty alleviation...