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Showing all content in Farms
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Blog post
Can Zambia escape the clutches of the resource curse?
Zambia has made slow but steady progress in building its industrial capabilities. But a major push is needed if the manufacturing sector is to help lessen the country’s dependence on exports of copper and reduce poverty and unemployment. This may prove a challenge given that Zambia’s economy has been driven by copper mining. Economies that are dominated by mineral...
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Publication - Working Paper
Low quality, low returns, low adoption: Evidence from the market for fertilizer and hybrid seed in Uganda
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Project
Financing the expansion and delivery of urban services
Growing cities have the potential to raise productivity in Rwanda and accelerate reductions in poverty. However, to do so, municipalities will have to raise revenue to finance urban infrastructure and services. This paper analyses policy options for increasing municipal revenues to finance urbanisation. The researchers recommend changes to the property tax...
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Project
Dealing with fake agricultural inputs
Technology adoption in African agriculture is very low, constraining productivity and income for the rural population There is ample anecdotal evidence of fake agricultural inputs, but little empirical proof of the magnitude of the issue IGC research shows that retail-level inputs tend to be of poor quality, partly explaining poor adoption ...
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Project
Commodity exchanges in Africa: A solution to challenges smallholder farmers face?
Many African smallholder farmers complain, often loudly, about what in Ghana some farmers call the lack of “marketing” – by which they mean the lack of consistent output markets for their food crops. In Sub-Saharan Africa output markets for food crops remain fragmented, and often involve individual traders going to farms to collect relatively small amounts of the...
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Project
Risk and relationships: Ice retailing in the Sierra Leone fishing industry
The emerging markets of low-income countries are often characterised by uncertainty and instability, weak enforcement of formal contracts and thin supplier markets, making informal contractual relationships especially important. When market structures change, how do those relationships change? Researchers who studied the ice retail business in Sierra Leone’s fishing...
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Publication - Project Memo
Coffee Washing Stations in Rwanda (Project Memo)
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Project
Fully washed coffee exports in Rwanda: Market structure and policy implications
By doubling the proportion of coffee exported as fully washed, Rwanda could increase coffee exports by 10-20% The study surveyed farmers and washing station owners, to understand constraints to the washed coffee sector The researchers suggested a system of value chain financing to relieve finance constraints The paper informed the revision of the...
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Publication - Working Paper
Relationships, risk and rents: Evidence from a market for ice
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Event
Conference: Rwandan Coffee Sector
The Rwanda coffee conference was held in Kigali on February 9th, 2015. The event brought together 85 policy makers, private-sector participants, donors, and researchers to discuss ways forward for the sector. Recommendations and way forward The participants at the conference welcomed the introduction of the draft coffee policy as a positive step forward in boosting the...