Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Malawi
Malawi has experienced modest economic growth over the last decade and a half. However, agricultural growth has been particularly erratic, and while the incidence of poverty has declined, it still remains high. The Malawian government, within the framework of the Agricultural Development Plan (ADP), is in the process of implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme... more
Identifying Opportunities in Ghana?s Agriculture: Results from a Policy Analysis Matrix
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 in the country. The PAM is a budget-based method that was applied to study the social and private... more
Surveillance and Control of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Ghana ? An assessment of institutions and actors
The objective of this research was to identify the institutions and their relative influence associated with surveillance and control of HPAI in Ghana, the flow of information for disease reporting among institutions, and the institutional responses to disease occurrence. The questions were: Who is involved? How do they communicate about suspected outbreaks? How do they respond to confirmed... more
Agricultural Investment for Growth and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria
This study assesses public investment required for agricultural growth and poverty reduction in Nigeria. Using time series data for public spending and agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) growth, the econometrically estimated results show that one percent of growth in agricultural spending generates 0.24 percent of growth in agricultural TFP. To support 9.5 percent in agricultural... more
Agroenvironmental transformation in the Sahel
A farmer-managed, agroenvironmental transformation has occurred over the past three decades in the West African Sahel, enabling both land rehabilitation and agricultural intensification to support a dense and growing population. This paper traces the technical and institutional innovations, their impacts, and lessons learned from two successful examples. The first is the story of the... more
Economywide impacts of climate change on agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa: How Can African Agriculture Adapt to Climate Change? Insights from Ethiopia and South Africa
This brief describes the results of a modeling exercise to forecast the economywide impacts of expanding irrigation and increasing agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa modeled under a relatively moderate SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenario) B2 climate change scenario, which was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The results were generated using a... more
Agricultural growth and investment options for poverty reduction in Nigeria
This study uses an economy-wide, dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model to analyze the ability of growth in various agricultural subsectors to accelerate overall economic growth and reduce poverty in Nigeria over the next years (2009-17). In addition, econometric methods are used to assess growth requirements in agricultural public spending and the relationship between public... more
Agricultural land purchases for alternative uses ? evidence from two farming areas in the Western Cape province, South Africa
Purchases of agricultural land for diverse reasons, such as recreation or aesthetic appeal (collectively referred to as lifestyle purposes), has implications for agricultural land valuations, commercial agriculture and the acquisition of land for redistribution purposes. This paper reports on the extent of purchases of agricultural land for diverse reasons within an intensive and extensive... more
Pages
