Colin Poulton

Overcoming Market Constraints on Pro‐Poor Agricultural Growth in Sub‐Saharan Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, there is fairly broad agreement that increased investment in key public goods such as roads and communications infrastructure, agricultural research and water control will be required if revitalised agricultural development is to take place. However, it has proved more difficult to reach agreement on what needs to be done to improve the performance of agricultural markets. In this article we set out an agenda for investment and policy reform in this area, providing a brief theoretical examination of the co-ordination problems involved before examining in turn demand and supply constraints affecting smallholder farmers, and policies for price stabilisation and the co-ordination of support services. We also argue that increased attention needs to be paid to governance issues.

The Millennium Development Goals: a cross-sectoral analysis and principles for goal setting after 2015

Bringing together analysis across different sectors, we review the implementation and achievements of the MDGs to date to identify cross cutting strengths and weaknesses as a basis for considering how they might be developed or replaced after 2015. Working from this and a definition of development as a dynamic process involving sustainable and equitable access to improved wellbeing, five interwoven guiding principles are proposed for a post 2015 development project: holism, equity, sustainability, ownership, and global obligation. These principles and their possible implications in application are expanded and explored. The paper concludes with an illustrative discussion of how these principles might be applied in the health sector.

Organization and performance of cotton sectors in Africa : learning from reform experience

Cotton is a major source of foreign exchange earnings in more than 15 countries across all regions of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and a crucial source of cash income for millions of rural people in these countries. The crop is, therefore, critical in the fight against rural poverty. The World Bank and other development institutions have been and are currently assisting many cotton exporting countries of SSA to improve their cotton sector performance through projects supporting investment as well as through policy and institutional reform. Many SSA countries have been implementing or are considering implementing reforms of their cotton industries. The ultimate objective of the reform programs is to strengthen the competitiveness of cotton production, processing, and exports in an increasingly demanding world market and to ensure long-term, sustainable, and equitable growth for these major sectors of many African economies. The reform programs generally entail redefining the role of the state; facilitating greater involvement of the private sector and farmer organizations; ensuring greater competition in input and output markets; improving productivity through research and development, extension, and technology dissemination; and seeking value addition through market development and processing of cotton lint and by-products. A number of SSA cotton sectors, especially in West and Central Africa (WCA), are currently facing serious short-term financial difficulties. It is important to clarify that the purpose of this report is not to provide quick solutions to these short-run problems. Rather, it is to step back, build up a reliable broad assessment of cotton sector performance from detailed empirical information, and thereby provide guidance for the design of strategies that will address the long-term challenges of cotton production and marketing in Africa. Finally, to ensure that a broad perspective was brought to bear, the study was entrusted to a team which includes independent researchers and experts in the field of cotton.

Institutional Diversity and Performance in African Cotton Sectors

This article analyses the performance of cotton sectors across East, Southern, and West Africa, paying particular attention to the wide diversity of institutional arrangements that they now exhibit. It finds strong support for earlier contentions regarding trade-offs between competition and coordination, and between the roles of public and private sectors. New insights provide concrete and context-specific guidance to policy-makers and stakeholders regarding the key challenges they will face and the risks they will need to manage as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within cotton sectors.

Integrated Soil Fertility Management and Poverty Traps in Western Kenya

Based on agro-climatic conditions, the highland districts around Lake Victoria in western Kenya should be a food surplus area. In practice, they are heavily dependent on food imports, whilst national poverty surveys consistently show them to be amongst the poorest in the country. At the root of this problem are high population densities and, therefore, small land holdings, and limited access to markets. As a result of continuous cropping with very little investment in soil fertility replenishment, the soils have become severely depleted. Many poor households in these districts are now caught in a “maize-focused poverty trap”, whereby their first agricultural priority is to provide themselves with maize for home consumption, yet yields are low and returns are insufficient to support investment in either organic soil fertility enhancement technologies or inorganic fertilizers. Thus, despite that the majority of average household puts large portions of its land under maize during both cropping seasons, it is still unable to feed itself for several months of the year. In addition to the problem of low soil fertility, continuous cropping of maize has also led to an endemic infestation of the striga weed throughout these districts, further depressing maize yields.

Providing marketing information to smallholders in Zimbabwe: What can the state usefully do?

In recent decades, significant international assistance has been provided to assist the establishment of market information systems (MISs) in a range of developing countries, including many in Africa. However, experience with state-run MISs, looking to provide current price information to market participants, has not been encouraging. Volatile horticultural markets provide particular challenges for such MISs. Therefore, it is suggested that it might be more appropriate to provide other types of marketing information to inform the production and marketing decisions of smallholder producers. This paper reports on recent efforts by the national extension agency, Agritex, to provide such information to smallholder horticultural producers in two districts of north-eastern Zimbabwe. Drawing on an initial evaluation of this pilot programme, the paper suggests that: 1) in the Zimbabwe case, the extension service may provide a viable vehicle for dissemination of marketing information to smallholder (horticultural) producers; 2) information on new crops and market opportunities is valued more highly by farmers than information on current market prices; 3) such information should complement, not supplant, traditional production extension advice. The paper concludes by considering some of the issues pertaining to the continuation and expansion of the pilot programme.