The report assesses the World Bank Group?s support for growth and productivity in the agriculture sector. Enhancing agricultural growth and productivity is essential to meeting the worldwide demand for food and to reducing poverty, particularly in the poorest developing countries. Between 1998 and 2008, the period covered by this evaluation, the World Bank Group (WBG) provided $23.7 billion in financing for agriculture and agribusiness in 108 countries (roughly 8 percent of total WBG financing), spanning areas from irrigation and marketing to research and extension. However, this was a time of declining focus on agricultural growth and productivity by both countries and donors. The cost of inadequate attention to agriculture, especially in agriculture-based economies, came into focus with the food crisis of 2007-08. The crisis added momentum to an emerging renewal of attention and stepped-up financing to agriculture and agribusiness at the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as at several multilateral and bilateral agencies. World Bank financing rose two and a half times from 2008 to 2009, though that increase in lending seems to have been accompanied by a decline in analytical work, which this review finds valuable for results. This evaluation seeks to provide lessons from successes and failures to help improve the development impact of the renewed attention to the sector. Ratings against the World Bank?s stated objectives and IFC?s market-based benchmarks for agriculture and agribusiness projects have been equal to or above portfolio averages in East Asia, Latin America, and the transition economies in Europe, with notable successes over a long period in China and India. But performance of WBG interventions has been well below average in Sub-Saharan Africa, where IFC has had little engagement in agribusiness. Inconsistent client commitment and weak capacity have limited the effectiveness of WBG support in agriculture-based economies, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and constraints on staffing and internal coordination within the WBG have also hurt outcomes. Financial sustainability has been constrained by insufficient government funding and the difficulty of maintaining agricultural services and infrastructure. The WBG has a unique opportunity to match the increases in the financing for agriculture with sharper focus on improving agricultural growth and productivity in agriculture-based economies, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. Greater effort will be needed to connect sectoral interventions and achieve synergies from public and private sector interventions; to build capacity and knowledge exchange; to take stock of experience in rain-fed agriculture; to ensure attention to financial sustainability and to cross-cutting issues of gender, environmental and social impacts, and climate; and to better integrate WBG support at the global and regional levels with that at the country level.

This book examines how agricultural innovation arises in four African countries ? Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda ? through the lens of agribusiness, public policies, and specific value chains for food staples, high value products, and livestock.

Supply Chain is the core business process in an organization that create and deliver a product or service, from concept through development and manufacturing or conversion, and into a market for consumption. Supply chain objectives include cost reduction, value addition and reducing response time in profit-based organisations in contrast to the non-profit based where issues like quality of life, equal opportunity, literacy rate, etc. are the priority area. In the international market, it helps business organisations to provide customer value, coordination, information sharing to stakeholders and societal value in the educational supply chain with feasible relationships internally as well as externally. Better outsourcing, enhanced profits, customer satisfaction, quality outcomes, competitive pressure, e-commerce application, globalisation, efficient operation and increasing complicity factors require supply chain management. Transparency is recognised as the key principle of public procurement policy but governments do not make public procurement data public. Public procurement laws may say what information to publish but not how to publish it. Governments may have new procurement laws and e-procurement systems, but they do not have accessible public procurement data and that is why they do not make it public. E-procurement systems are difficult to use and require a lot of user training. E-procurement reforms are frequently unsuccessful and challenging. Role of Information Technology in Supply Chain Management It contributes to restructuring the entire distribution set up to reduce inventory costs and achieve higher service levels. It reduces lead time, monitors transactions and stock levels. It helps to maintain a better stockholder relationship and gain a competitive advantage and market sustainability. The flow of products, information between the chain actors and coordinating activities to manage the supply chain is ensured by IT.

This volume presents a state-of-the-art overview of the rapidly evolving field of agribusiness, highlighting the most current issues, concepts, trends and themes in research, practice and policy. With a particular emphasis on technology, product and process innovation, the authors cover a wide array of topics relating to such issues as research and development, technology transfer and patents and licensing, with particular respect to the roles of academic institutions, private organizations and public agencies in generating and disseminating knowledge. Featuring case studies of innovative initiatives across the industry, this book will appeal to researchers, business leaders, university administrators and policymakers concerned with the multi-faceted implications of this dynamic and controversial sector.

Today’s food and agribusiness managers operate in a rapidly changing, highly volatile, international, high technology, consumer-focused world. This new edition of Agribusiness Management was written to help prepare students and managers for a successful career in this new world of food and fiber production and marketing. Agribusiness Management uses four specific approaches to help readers develop and enhance their capabilities as agribusiness managers. First, this edition of the book offers a contemporary focus that reflects the issues that agribusiness managers face both today and are likely to face tomorrow. Specifically, food sector firms and larger agribusiness firms receive more attention in this edition, reflecting their increasing importance as employers of food and agribusiness program graduates. Second, the book presents conceptual material in a pragmatic way with illustrations and examples that will help the reader understand how a specific concept works in practice. Third, the book has a decision-making emphasis, providing contemporary tools that readers will find useful when making decisions in the contemporary business environment. Finally, Agribusiness Management offers a pertinent set of discussion questions and case studies that will allow the reader to apply the material covered in real-world situations. The bottom-line on this fourth edition of Agribusiness Management: this book is contemporary, solid on the fundamentals, practical and applicable. It provides students and adult learners with an essential understanding of what it takes to be a successful agribusiness manager in today’s rapidly evolving, highly unpredictable marketplace.

The future of Africa and the whole globe is dependent on sustainable agribusiness management. This book offers insights to a wide range of agricultural marketing and agribusiness management practices with a focus on sustainability. It is designed to provide academics and graduate students in business studies with a comprehensive treatment of the nature of agricultural marketing and agribusiness management, as well as sustainability transitions and related practices in certain regions of the world (particularly in Africa). The text also serves as an invaluable resource for agricultural marketing practitioners requiring more than anecdotal evidence on the structure and operation of agricultural marketing and agribusiness management, as well as sustainability in different organisations and geographical areas. It allows the reader to compare and contrast agricultural marketing and agribusiness management, as well as sustainability practices across different research methodologies and settings. The book provides a unique mix of theory, reviews, primary research findings and case studies.