Valerie A. Kelly

Policy Reforms and Sustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa

African farmers have traditionally pursued shifting cultivation in response to population growth and declining soil fertility. Rural population growth and displacement, due to urban expansion and the gazetting of parks and protected areas, have long encouraged the cultivation of new land by extending farming into forests, wetlands, hillsides, and pastures. However, in much of Africa the extensification path is rapidly becoming unsustainable or impractical as land grows more scarce in the face of population growth. That scarcity is increasing as the forest, rangeland, or wetland margin becomes exhausted, threatening biological diversity, and farmers are barred from using the remainder (for example, because of the gazetting of parks and protected areas), or soil degradation reduces crop yields and forage growth over time. Combined with increasing domestic demand for agricultural products fuelled by growth in population and incomes, there are strong pressures on farmers to intensify agriculture by using more labour and/or capital per hectare of land.

Promoting Intersectoral Growth Linkages in Rural Africa Through Agricultural Technology and Policy Reform

This paper addresses how increased rural incomes in select African cases are spent on consumption items, the implications of these patterns for stimulating rural growth, and areas of intervention necessary to sustain demand-led growth from improved agricultural technology and economic reforms. The country studies utilize panel data collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in collaboration with African institutions and re-

Input Use and Conservation Investments among Farm Households in Rwanda: Patterns and Determinants

One of the Government of Rwanda’s key post-war policy objectives has been to increase agricultural productivity and ensure food security by promoting a transition from semi-subsistence production and marketing practices to intensive production and highly commercialized agricultural markets. The government wants farmers to increase land and labor productivity through the use of modern inputs, thereby generating substantial surpluses which can be sold to pay for inputs and generate increases in farm incomes.

Impacts of devaluation on Senegalese households: policy implications

Abstract In January 1994 the franc CFA was devaluated from 50 to 100 FCFA to the French franc. This article uses detailed income and expenditure data to simulate the impact of the devaluation on real household income and identify the groups in Senegal that are most damaged. Urban households are hit hardest because they consume large quantities of imported rice and do not earn income from exportables. Surprisingly, one rural area is as negatively affected as the urban areas, one experiences no change, and a third realizes only a small (5%) increase in real income. These small or negative affects occur because consumption of imported rice is high — which is still the case a year after devaluation — and income from the production of exportable peanuts is low. Relatively strong positive impacts (14–16% increase in real income) were realized only in the two zones where peanuts account for a large share of total income (about 50%). This is perhaps a more negative (or, in some cases, ambiguous) impact in rural areas than we think policymakers expected. The difference from expectations is due to the higher-than-expected levels of rice consumption and the lower-than-expected shares of income earned from peanut production. These two facts together lead to a greater negative demand-side effect and smaller positive supply-side effects of devaluation in several rural zones. Attention should be given to 1. Policies to protect vulnerable groups and 2. Policies to stimulate investment by groups realizing short-run increases in income (thereby channeling the short-run benefits into actions that will foster long-run economic growth).