Despite the rise of targeted input subsidy programs in Africa over the last decade, several questions remain as to whether low and variable soil fertility, frequent drought, and high fertilizer prices render fertilizer unprofitable for large subpopulations of African farmers. To examine these questions, we use large-scale, panel experimental data from maize field trials throughout Malawi to estimate the expected physical returns to fertilizer use conditional on a range of agronomic factors and weather conditions. Using these estimated returns and historical price and weather data, we simulate the expected profitability of fertilizer application over space and time. We find that the fertilizer bundles distributed under Malawi’s subsidy program are almost always profitable in expectation, although our results may be reasonably interpreted as upper-bound estimates among more skilled farmers given that the experimental subjects were not randomly selected.

The good practice guidelines - which form the basis of an interactive policymaker's tool kit included on a CD accompanying the book - relate not only to the more focused problem of encouraging increased fertilizer use by farmers, but also to the broader challenge of creating the type of enabling environment that is needed to support the emergence of efficient, dynamic and commercially viable fertilizer marketing systems."--Jacket.

To better inform donor support for public food safety interventions, this paper reviews the literature on the impact of more stringent food safety standards on developing-country markets. This literature has primarily focused on the market access and economic implications of higher standards in export markets rather than on the extensive debate around market failure and public health benefits that dominates the literature in developed countries. We find that the market access benefits from compliance with public and private food safety standards are clear, as is the market exclusion that results from noncompliance. These benefits are now well documented, with more recent evidence pointing to added benefits of poverty reduction and spillovers for health and productivity. Rigorous evidence is also found concerning the positive role of technical assistance and public or donor support. Most of the literature, however, has focused on the relatively small market for EU horticultural products, which will provide opportunities for only a fraction of developing-country producers. This narrow focus causes important gaps in the literature informing meaningful public roles in addressing food safety in developing countries. Future research should examine and rigorously evaluate alternative models for how best to support improved food safety management outside of the export channels that have been the focus of the literature thus far. Further, evaluating the impact of public–private approaches on reduction in enforcement costs and improving compliance through supporting industry-led efforts would better inform donor support for food safety reforms, as would research among developing-country consumers with respect to food safety reforms and public health.

By most accounts, rural Malawi has lacked dynamism in the past decade. Growth has been mostly volatile, in large part due to unstable macroeconomic fundamentals evidenced by high inflation, fiscal deficits, and interest rates. When rapid economic growth has materialized, the gains have not always reached the poorest. Poverty remains high and the rural poor face significant challenges in consistently securing enough food. Several factors contribute to stubbornly high rural poverty. They include a low-productivity and non-diversified agriculture, macroeconomic and recurrent climatic shocks, limited non-farm opportunities and low returns to such activities, especially for the poor, and poor performance from some of the prominent safety net programs. The Report proposes complementary policy actions that offer a possible path for a more dynamic and prosperous rural economy. The key pillars of this comprise macroeconomic stability, increased productivity in agriculture, faster urbanization, better functioning safety nets, and more inclusive financial markets. Some recommendations call for a reorientation of existing programs such as the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) and the Malawi Social Action Fund Public Works Program (MASAF-PWP). Others identify promising new areas of intervention, such as the introduction of digital IDs and biometric technologies to enhance the reach of mobile banking and deepen financial inclusion. Finally, and importantly, the report recommends the scaling up of investments on girls’ secondary education to curb early child marriage and early child bearing among adolescents. This will empower women at home and work and bend the trajectory of fertility rates in rural areas in order to boost human development and reduce poverty.

This study investigates the consequences of poor implementation in public workfare programs, focusing on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. Using nationally representative data, we test empirically for a discouraged worker effect arising from either of two mechanisms: administrative rationing of jobs among those who seek work and delays in wage payments. We find strong evidence at the household and district levels that administrative rationing discourages subsequent demand for work. Delayed wage payments seem to matter significantly during rainfall shocks. We find further that rationing is strongly associated with indicators of implementation ability such as staff capacity. Politics appears to play only a limited role. The findings suggest that assessments of the relevance of public programs over their lifecycle need to factor in implementation quality.

This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

For anyone wanting to learn, in practical terms, how to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty, this Handbook is the place to start. It is designed to be accessible to people with a university-level background in science or the social sciences. It is an invaluable tool for policy analysts, researchers, college students, and government officials working on policy issues related to poverty and inequality.

A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.

This book is based on the findings of a long-term (2000-2014) interdisciplinary research project of the University of Hohenheim in collaboration with several universities in Thailand and Vietnam. Titled Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Areas in Southeast Asia, or the Uplands Program, the project aims to contribute through agricultural research to the conservation of natural resources and the improvement of living conditions of the rural population in the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia. Having three objectives the book first aims to give an interdisciplinary account of the drivers, consequences and challenges of ongoing changes in mountainous areas of Southeast Asia. Second, the book describes how innovation processes can contribute to addressing these challenges and third, how knowledge creation to support change in policies and institutions can assist in sustainably develop mountain areas and people’s livelihoods.

Using cross-country and panel regressions, the authors show that financial sector development significantly reduces undernourishment (hunger), largely through gaining farmers and others access to productivity-enhancing equipment, translating into beneficial income and general effects. They show specifically that a deeper financial sector leads to higher agricultural productivity, including higher cereal yields, through increased fertilizer and tractor use. Higher productivity in turn leads to lower undernourishment. The results are robust to various specifications and econometric tests and imply that a 1 percentage point increase in private credit to GDP reduces undernourishment by 0.22-2.45 percentage points, or about one-quarter the impact of GDP per capita.