By increasing their production for the market and realizing greater incomes, smallholder farming households can significantly accelerate local agricultural and rural economic development. The increased income of these commercially oriented farmers increases their demand for the goods, services, and labor that can be supplied by other, often poorer, households in their community, expanding local non-farm employment opportunities and raising incomes for those other households. Appropriately targeting agricultural development efforts towards commercially oriented farming households has important second-round economic development benefits in their communities, effects which cannot be achieved without properly identifying such households. In this Policy Note, we examine both household and spatial factors that may drive participation by smallholder farming households in oilseed value chains, focusing on those for groundnut, soyabean, and sunflower. Groundnut has been an important secondary crop within many smallholder farming systems across Malawi for several generations, used both for own consumption within the household and for sale. Soyabean and sunflower are more recent introductions and are primarily grown for commercial sale by both smallholders and commercial farmers. Annual production and yield levels for these crops in recent years are shown in Table 1.

`This is a "must read" for anyone interested in value chain finance.---Kenneth Shwedel, Agricultural Economist --Book Jacket.

This framework presents ten interrelated principles/elements to guide Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in Africa (SAMA). Further, it presents the technical issues to be considered under SAMA and the options to be analysed at the country and sub regional levels. The ten key elements required in a framework for SAMA are as follows: The analysis in the framework calls for a specific approach, involving learning from other parts of the world where significant transformation of the agricultural mechanization sector has already occurred within a three-to-four decade time frame, and developing policies and programmes to realize Africa’s aspirations of Zero Hunger by 2025. This approach entails the identification and prioritization of relevant and interrelated elements to help countries develop strategies and practical development plans that create synergies in line with their agricultural transformation plans. Given the unique characteristics of each country and the diverse needs of Africa due to the ecological heterogeneity and the wide range of farm sizes, the framework avoids being prescriptive.

Restrictions on exports of staples or cash crops are frequently imposed in developing countries to promote food security or industrial development goals. By diverting production to the local market, these policies aim to reduce prices and increase the supply of food or intermediate inputs to the benefit of consumers or downstream industrial users. Although export restrictions reduce aggregate welfare, they are attractive to policymakers: Governments gain support when they are seen to keep consumer prices low; likewise, politicians are swayed by industrial lobbyists who promise increased value-addition in exchange for access to cheaper inputs. This study weighs in on the debate around the desirability of export restrictions by simulating the economy-wide effects of Malawi’s longstanding maize export ban as well as a pro-posed oilseed export levy intended to raise value-addition in processing sectors. Our results show that, while export restrictions may have the desired outcome in the short run, producers respond to weakening market prospects in the longer run by restricting supply, often to the extent that the policies become self-defeating. Specifically, maize export bans only benefit the urban non-poor, while poor farm households experience income losses and reduced maize consumption in the long run. The oilseed export levy is equally ineffective: Even when export tax revenues are used to subsidize processors, gains in industrial value-addition are outweighed by declining agricultural value-addition as production in the fledgling oilseed sector is effectively decimated. The policy is further associated with welfare losses among rural households, while urban non-poor households benefit marginally.

This publication is based on the proceedings of the Workshop "Strengthening Potato Value Chains in developing countries" held in November 2008. The presentations summarized in this publication are mostly based on experiences made in CFC (Common Fund for Commodities) potato sector development projects. In line with the policy to disseminate the information generated by CFC financed projects as widely as possible, it is our expectation that this publication will be instrumental to make impressive results and experiences of CFC pilot projects in the potato sector available to a wider audience. This document will be most useful and relevant to extension workers, researchers, policy makers and others involved in the development of the potato sector.

This book offers an in-depth analyses of value chain policies, past and present in West Africa. The book contains a large number of in-depth case studies of food value chains in particular countries, including traditional export commodities (cocoa, cotton), high value exports (mangoes, horticulture) and the most important staple food value chains (oil palm, rice, maize, sorghum and millet and cassava) in the region. It also contains a large number of private and public initiatives, and thematic analyses relating to the role of the private agro-industry and producer organizations and their role as market agents.

In recent years, a renewed focus on agriculture has been evident in policy and development agendas for the African continent, yet little knowledge has been generated on the interlinkages of production, agroindustry and markets, as well as the potentials and challenges for developing these. This publication analyzes the challenges, the potential and opportunities of African agribusiness in the current period of dramatic changes in global agro-industrial markets, and builds a case for agribusiness development as a path to Africa's prosperity. Written by international experts, from agribusiness practitioners, to academic experts and UN technical agencies, this volume fills what the United Nations Industrial Development Organization perceived as a significant gap in knowledge concerning these issues.

Investing to promote agricultural growth and poverty reduction is a central pillar of the World Bank's current rural strategy, 'Reaching the Rural Poor' (2003). This 'Sourcebook' addresses how to implement the rural strategy, by sharing information on investment options and identifying innovative approaches that will aid the design of future lending programs for agriculture. It provides generic good practices and many examples that demonstrate investment in agriculture can provide rewarding and sustainable returns to development efforts. It is divided into eleven self-contained modules. Each module contains three different types of subunits that can also be stand-alone documents: I. Module Overview II. Agricultural Investment Notes III. Innovative Activity Profiles. The stand-alone nature of the subunits allows flexibility and adaptability of the material. Selected readings and web links are also provided for readers who seek more in-depth information. The 'Sourcebook' draws on a wide range of experiences from donor agencies, governments, institutions, and other groups active in agricultural development. It is an invaluable reference tool for policy makers, professionals, academics and students, and anyone with an interest in agricultural investments.

This book presents an overview of the key debates that took place during the Economic and Social Council meetings at the 2007 High-level Segment, at which ECOSOC organized its first biennial Development Cooperation Forum. The discussions also revolved around the theme of the second Annual Ministerial Review, "Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development."--P. 4 of cover.

This open access book provides a clear holistic conceptual framework of CISS-F (competitiveness, inclusiveness, sustainability, scalability and access to finance) to analyse the efficiency of value chains of high value agricultural commodities in India. It is based on the understanding that agriculture is an integrated system that connects farming with logistics, processing and marketing. Farmer’s welfare being central to any agricultural policy makes it very pertinent to study how a value chain works and can be strengthened further to realize this policy goal. This book adds value to the existing research by studying the value chains end-to-end across a wide spectrum of agricultural commodities with the holistic lens of CISS-F. It is not enough that a value chain is competitive but not inclusive or it is competitive and inclusive but not sustainable. The issue of scalability is very critical to achieve macro gains in terms of greater farmer outreach and sectoral growth. The research undertaken here brings out some very useful insights for policymaking in terms of what needs to be done better to steer the agricultural value chains towards being more competitive, inclusive, sustainable and scalable. The value chain specific research findings help draw very nuanced policy recommendations as well as present a big picture of the future direction of policy making in agriculture.