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Numerous structural vulnerabilities put developing regions at a disadvantage as they confront the prospect of increasingly frequent extreme shocks. Typical of these regions, South Asia had several characteristics that suggested it would be badly hit by COVID‐19: a sizeable informal sector, growing inequalities in access to health services and social protection, and high levels of hunger and malnutrition. This Special Issue focuses on the South Asian experience through COVID‐19 and distills forward‐looking lessons for the developing world. Included papers point to the importance of strengthening individual resilience, building basic infrastructure and institutional capacity, and implementing inclusive social protection measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether preference heterogeneity between spouses contributes to limited cash crop production in Southern Ethiopia. Using the value of livestock each spouse would take in the event of divorce as a measure of bargaining power; this paper shows a significant negative correlation between the bargaining power proxies and coffee output. Livestock ownership during marriage does not have a significant impact on coffee production. In contrast to the case in commercial production, women's exit options have a weak, positive effect on production of the staple crop, enset. Key word--Ethiopia, Africa, bargaining, coffee, livestock, divorce

This paper studies the effects of a multifaceted asset transfer programme on the decision-making dynamics of smallholder households. Constructing separate indexes of participation in household decision-making for adult females and males, and using difference-in-differences to assess the impact of livestock transfer and training, we find evidence that these interventions increased the share of decisions in which individuals participated, regardless of gender. Increases in decision-making participation by both men and women are driven by an increase in joint decision-making within the household on the extensive margin. Decisions made jointly by men and women increased by 16 per cent across all household activities, with statistically significant declines in independent decision-making by men and women. Findings are encouraging given the evidence of welfare gains associated both with increases in participation in decision-making by women as well as increased cooperation within households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been successful interventions fortifying staple foods to mobilize micronutrients as well as agricultural efforts to raise yields of staple foods to increase food availability. Zambia serves as an interesting case study because since 1961 there has been a notable decline in the availability of animal source foods (ASFs) and pulses and a significant increase in the supply of cassava and vegetable oils. The shift in food availability was partly attributed to the agricultural success in high-yielding and drought-resistant varieties that made cassava and oil crops more affordable and readily available. In this research, we explore another policy strategy that involves ASF as a mechanism to help remedy micronutrient inadequacies in a population. A scenario modeling analysis compares the changes in the nutrient profile of the Zambian diet through adding either staple plant source foods (PSFs) or ASFs. The scenarios under study involve the addition of (1) 18 fl oz of whole cow's milk; (2) 60 g of beef, 30 g of chicken, and 5 g of beef liver; (3) milk plus meat; or (4) 83 g of maize flour, 123 g of cassava, and other staple PSF, that is, isocaloric to the "milk + meat" group. The findings alert program planners and policy makers to the value of increasing the availability, accessibility, and utilization of ASF to simultaneously address multiple nutrient deficiencies, as well as the nutrition challenges that remain when expanding the availability of plant-based staples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market liberalisation that swept through Africa starting in the 1990s was intended to promote agricultural growth by stimulating investment in under-capitalised sectors. The article assesses price transmission to better understand market performance following liberalisation and foreign investment. Our findings show weak and asymmetric price transmission. These results imply room for policy interventions to enhance the welfare effects of the growing sugar sector. Weak and asymmetric price transmission also implies that increased access to export markets, as through the European Union (EU) Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement, could have smaller and less widely distributed benefits than would otherwise be the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the intensity of technology adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) techniques by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. It seeks to understand the drivers of CA adoption intensity in terms of the number of practices implemented using count data analysis. On average, the farmers in our sample adopt five out of eight possible CA practices while only 7.4% use all eight practices in any one year. Practices such as digging planting basins (81.9%), applying manure (73.2%) and timely post-planting weeding (70.1%) are relatively popular, while adoption of crop rotation (22.8%) is comparatively rare. Productivity is positively correlated to the number of techniques used. Farmers adopting all the CA practices are the most productive, with an estimated maize yield of 2.50 tons/ha, compared with a yield of less than 1 tons/ha for those using three techniques or fewer. Results from a Poisson regression indicate that education, agro-ecology, non-governmental input support and extension support have a significant impact on adoption intensity. Subsidised inputs increase the number of components used, although access to those inputs was uneven across regions of Zimbabwe. Further, the number of CA components used in the previous season positively impacts current season adoption intensity, implying that promotions of CA technologies do have a persistent effect, even after those promotions end. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In much of rural Africa, high transaction costs limit farmers' market participation and thus their potential for income growth. Transaction costs can affect not only whether a farmer sells product but also whether sales occur at the farm gate or at a market. If production behavior is related to a chosen sales location, then analysis of interventions can be improved by explicit consideration of the decision of where to sell. This article develops a double-selection model that explains consumption and production decisions by semi-subsistence farmers who first decide whether to be a seller and then whether to sell at the farm gate or at an off-farm location before deciding on production and consumption. The study tests the validity of this dual-criteria model against a single-criterion model in which a grower first decides to be a seller and then decides production, consumption, and sales location simultaneously. The results suggest that the dual-criteria model provides more information than the single-criterion model using a sample of cassava producer in Benin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved farm technologies in Ethiopia display high levels of promise and low rates of adoption. This article studies the impact of social networks on technology adoption focusing on social learning through networks based on physical proximity and those based on intentional relationships. Impacts by network type, technology, and asset poverty status are explored. Social learning is more evident for households not in persistent poverty, for more complex technologies, and within networks based on intentional relationships rather than proximity. Results indicate that technology diffusion in Ethiopia is likely to be enhanced if extension can target intentional networks, rather than spatial clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several studies have shown conceptually that assets form a more robust basis for identifying the poor than do flow variables like expenditures or income. Asset-based poverty classification can be used to distinguish structural from stochastic poverty and can enable projection of poverty dynamics through time. Nonetheless, little work has empirically compared poverty measurement based on assets and expenditures to indicate the practical implications of the choice of poverty measure. This article uses panel data (between 1994 and 2004) from Ethiopia to generate asset- and expenditures-based poverty classifications. Asset dynamics are then explored to test for the existence of multiple asset index equilibria that could constitute evidence of poverty traps. Results provide evidence of multiple equilibria and show that the asset-based poverty classifications predict future asset and expenditures poverty status more accurately than expenditures-based measures. The findings confirm that the asset-based measure could be used to more carefully target poverty interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because many animal diseases have strong transboundary attributes, their control can be reasonably characterised as an international public good. The potential for reservoirs of transboundary diseases to persist in developing countries that lack the capacity or incentives to control them implies a need for international financial transfers to fund control. However, the costs of control can be large compared with development assistance budgets, and the benefits small compared with the global benefits of control and the local benefits of other priority investments. This article outlines a framework for setting priorities for international development assistance for animal disease control based on the incidence of market and non-market impacts and the context in which outbreaks take place in endemic and susceptible countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite improvements in production incentives, agricultural output in Africa remained sluggish through the 1990s. Low use of purchased inputs may be part of the cause of persistently low productivity in African agriculture. This article analyzes the roles of relative prices and transactions costs in explaining low use of chemical inputs among Tanzanian coffee growers. A sample selection model indicates that output prices exert great influence on input purchases and that both fixed and variable transactions costs affect input use decisions. Travel costs in input and output markets have distinct effects on input usage, implying distinct avenues for interventions to promote more intensive use of agricultural inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale farmers in developing countries may become trapped in poverty by lack of the liquidity needed to make profitable investments. Increased access to credit could generate pro-poor economic growth if poor households are otherwise liquidity-constrained and if liquidity-constrained households benefit from the new financial services. Using household data from rural Tanzania, this paper presents evidence that increased finance for liquidity-constrained households could generate pro-poor agricultural growth, but that general expansion of financial services to households that have no access to credit would not effectively target lower income households or households whose farm activities are liquidity-constrained. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether market liberalisation can promote agricultural development in Africa depends on how well existing institutions can facilitate trade by private agents. This article assesses the performance of the Tanzania coffee marketing system after liberalisation and the emergence of private, vertically integrated exporters (VIEs). Increasing producer prices, declining marketing margins, and the continued provision of a useful auction for coffee that is delivered by traders who are not VIEs all suggest a degree of success for liberalisation. The presence of VIEs seems to have provided investment to reduce marketing costs, whilst a sufficient number of competing firms has limited non-competitive behaviour in the market for coffee that is traded at the auction by non-VIEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the use of social accounting matrices (SAMs) for three African countries to model the income effects of stylized structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on different socioeconomic groups. What is revealed by the analysis; Information on the how the presence of rural elite or strong farm-nonfarm linkages improves the political sustainability of SAP.

Focuses on the need to account for natural resource depletion in measuring aggregate income. Exaggeration of the benefits of resource extraction; Disparity in patterns of growth among 18 African countries using conventional gross domestic product (GDP) and revised accounting; Link between exports and growth; Correlation of growth with real exchange rate alignment.

Currency devaluations prescribed for many developing countries are usually expected to generate a growth-stimulating reallocation of resources in favor of export production. Results from a computable general-equilibrium model of devaluation in Cameroon indicate aggregate growth in export agriculture with decline in some traditional export crops and expansion in specific nontradable food crops. While agriculture and manufacturing expand after devaluation, reduced output from services and construction causes short-term contraction in aggregate output. Positive growth and trade balance effects are dependent on a major reallocation of labor which has been difficult to achieve in Cameroon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainably meeting future food demand requires increases in food production and reductions in the amount of food that is lost and wasted. This paper examines inequality in postharvest losses to reveal patterns and opportunities for intervention. We present a measure that provides information on the distribution of postharvest losses in a single graph, the postharvest loss inequality curve, or an index number, the postharvest loss inequality index. Inequality measurement can help direct policy measures to units generating the greatest postharvest losses and thereby support more favorable policy outcomes and cost/benefit relationships. Concepts and methods introduced here are empirically analyzed based on the African Postharvest Losses Information System data for maize losses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Empirical results indicate the presence of a great deal of variability and inequality in postharvest losses as measured by the postharvest loss inequality index. In the data analyzed, the postharvest loss inequality index better captures anomalies in data distribution such as outliers, skewness and kurtosis than the more direct measure of postharvest losses as a share of total maize production. • We create the postharvest loss inequality curve (PLIC) and provide empirical illustrations. • We develop the postharvest loss inequality index (PLII). • We calculate PLII values for maize for 27 Sub-Saharan African countries to illustrate the concept. • We illustrate potential uses of the PLII in food policy analysis using statistical methods. • PLII and PLIC help reveal patterns and opportunities for policy intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]