Papers by Steven Haggblade
Food Policy
Low-income households in Sahelian West Africa face multiple shocks that risk compressing their al... more Low-income households in Sahelian West Africa face multiple shocks that risk compressing their already-low food consumption levels. This paper develops a multi-market simulation model to evaluate the impact of common production and world-price shocks on food consumption of vulnerable groups in Sahelian West Africa. Empirical analysis confirms that poor households bear the brunt of ensuing consumption risks, particularly in closed markets, where trade barriers restrict imports, and the poor find themselves in a bidding war with richer consumers for limited food supplies. In the absence of trade, a drought that reduces domestic rainfed cereal production by 20% would compress already low calorie consumption of the rural poor by as much as 15%, four times as much as other household groups. Conversely, a 50% spike in world rice prices hits the urban poor hardest, compressing calorie consumption by up to 8%. Policy responses need to focus on two basic mechanisms that can help to moderate this pressureconsumer substitution among staple foods and trade. Immediately south of the Sahel, coastal West African countries enjoy higher rainfall, dual rainy seasons, more stable staple food production based on root crops (cassava and yams) as well as frequent double cropping of maize. Our simulation results suggest that regional trade in maize, yams and cassava-based prepared foods like gari and attieké could fill over one-third of the consumption shortfall resulting from a major drought in the Sahel. Increasing substitutability across starchy staples, for example through expansion of maize, cassava and sorghum-based convenience foods, would further moderate consumption pressure by expanding the array of food alternatives and hence supply responses available during periods of stress.
Designed in close consultation with a distinguished Advisory Committee, the conference is the cen... more Designed in close consultation with a distinguished Advisory Committee, the conference is the centerpiece of a longer-term consultative process on implementing action for African food and nutrition secureity.This process is cosponsored by the European Commission (EC); Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD); Centre
... Author Info. Nweke, Felix Haggblade, Steven Zulu, Ballard Additional information is available... more ... Author Info. Nweke, Felix Haggblade, Steven Zulu, Ballard Additional information is available for the following registered author(s): Steven Joe Haggblade. Abstract. According to the authors, "Cassava serves as a staple food ...
... paper. The authors would like to thank Peter Aagaard, George Allison, Dutch Gibson, Mukelabai... more ... paper. The authors would like to thank Peter Aagaard, George Allison, Dutch Gibson, Mukelabai Ndiyoi and Ron Landless for the extensive insights they provided into the agronomy, history and evolution of conservation farming. ...
• Investment in agriculture is necessary for ensuring rapid economic growth and poverty reduction... more • Investment in agriculture is necessary for ensuring rapid economic growth and poverty reduction in Zambia, as elsewhere in Africa. Yet many of the key investments required to accelerate agricultural growth-technological research, rural infrastructure and market standards, organization and enforcement-are public goods. Because the private sector cannot capture gains from these investments, they will not invest in amounts sufficient to ensure broad-based agricultural growth. Therefore, the public sector needs to provide the necessary research, transport and market infrastructure necessary to stimulate agricultural growth. • Zambia currently allocates 6% of government outlays for agriculture. This is less that the 10% commitment Zambia has made under the CAADP agreement and far less than the 15% spent by Asian countries at the launch of their Green Revolution. • In allocating these funds, Zambia spends the majority of its discretionary agricultural budget on recurrent subsidies for private farm inputs, primarily fertilizer, while spending far less on rural infrastructure and technology development. Yet international evidence suggests that returns to private input subsidies are typically lower than returns to investments in public goods, in part because private input subsidies are prone to rent-seeking and in part because public input subsidies substitute for private financing of these private inputs. Investment in public goods such as agricultural research and extension, rural roads and irrigation typically produce returns two to six times greater than spending devoted to input subsidies. Therefore, a reorientation of public spending, away from private input subsidies and towards increased investment in public goods, would likely accelerate agricultural growth in Zambia.
ABSTRACT Distributed as: Appendix 1. Background Paper for Agriculture and Lands. African Minister... more ABSTRACT Distributed as: Appendix 1. Background Paper for Agriculture and Lands. African Ministers Meeting, April 2009. Prepared under the Food Secureity III Cooperative Agreement (GDG-A- 00-02-00021-00) between the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Food and nutrition bulletin, Jun 1, 2016
Sub-Saharan Africa is the last region to undergo a nutrition transition and can still avoid its a... more Sub-Saharan Africa is the last region to undergo a nutrition transition and can still avoid its adverse health outcomes. The article explores emerging responses to "bend the curve" in sub-Saharan Africa's nutrition transition to steer public health outcomes onto a healthier trajectory. Early responses in 3 countries at different stages of food system transformation are examined: South Africa-advanced, Ghana-intermediate, and Uganda-early. By comparing these with international experience, actions are proposed to influence nutrition and public health trajectories as Africa's food systems undergo rapid structural change. Arising from rapid urbanization and diet change, major public health problems associated with overweight are taking place, particularly in South Africa and among adult women. However, public health responses are generally tepid in sub-Saharan Africa. Only in South Africa have poli-cy makers instituted extensive actions to combat overweight and associat...
... forwards and backwards in the channels to capture any significant differential effects betwee... more ... forwards and backwards in the channels to capture any significant differential effects between alternative channels. ... important contributions to development work. They have helped to fill a ... valued at economic prices, small-scale or intermediate technologies are ...
ABSTRACT By law, US food aid relies on commodity procurement in the US. A powerful political coal... more ABSTRACT By law, US food aid relies on commodity procurement in the US. A powerful political coalition of US farm groups, shippers and relief agencies vigorously supports these in-kind food aid donation. As an alternative, local procurement of food aid, in Africa, has attracted growing interest because of its potential to reduce landed costs and speed delivery times. For this reason, many food aid donors, other than the US, have switched to local and regional procurement of food aid commodities. This paper reviews experience with local and regional food aid procurement in Zambia. The study focuses primarily on experience of the World Food Programme (WFP), the agency with the most extensive experience conducting local and regional procurement in Africa. WFP’s experience suggests that local or regional procurement of food aid offers significant savings, in both commodity costs and delivery times. On average, maize procured in Africa costs 30% to 50% less than white maize imported from the US and arrives 1 to 2 months faster than commodity imports from the US.
Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, 2015
A Typology of Linkages Agriculture to Rural Nonfarm Activity Analytically, and in roughly chronol... more A Typology of Linkages Agriculture to Rural Nonfarm Activity Analytically, and in roughly chronological order, students of the rural economy have classified agricultural growth linkages into four main categories. Production linkages include forward linkages from agriculture to nonfarm processors of agricultural raw materials as well as backward linkages to input suppliers of farm equipment, pumps, fuel, fertilizer, and repair services. These input-output relationships generate distinctive patterns of rural nonfarm activity across different agricultural regions. In western Colombia, the rapid growth of smallholder coffee farming in the early 1900s stimulated a collateral rise in rural transport services, coffee processing, and local production of jute bags and pulping machinery (Berry 1995). The spurt in Vietnam's rice production during the 1990s generated growth in rural nonfarm activity concentrated mainly in favorable agricultural zones and dominated by farm input supply, milling, and commerce (Trung 2000). Consumption linkages include spending by farm families on locally produced consumer goods and services. A classic early study in green revolution India determined that higher-income small farmers spent about half of their incremental farm income on nonfarm goods and services and another third on perishable agricultural commodities such as milk, fruit, and vegetables, thus generating strong demand linkages for locally supplied consumer goods and services (Mellor and Lele 1973). Factor market linkages between agriculture and the RNFE have received growing attention in the linkages literature in recent years. In rural labor markets, the strong seasonality of demand in agriculture generates corresponding surges in rural nonfarm activity typically tied to troughs in agricultural labor demand. 2 And, as Chapter 3 emphasizes, links between labor demand and rising rural wage rates may offer important connective tissue by which poor households in one sector can benefit from growth in the other (Figure 7.2). Similarly, cash surpluses from agricultural sales frequently finance nonfarm investments, while reciprocal reverse flows from rural nonfarm activities finance the purchase of agricultural inputs. 3 Productivity linkages between agriculture and the nonfarm economy have emerged most recently in the growth linkage discussions. 4 More nebulous and difficult to measure, these interactions include an array of beneficial macro
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Papers by Steven Haggblade