Critical choices must now be made if
growth is to be sustained. Significant potential exists for
future growth, but bringing out this potential poses a major
challenge for government policy. Agricultural strategy must
shift its focus towards support for continuous productivity
growth by peasant farms in a conducive marketing
environment. Key priorities include completion of land
reforms (especially in the North); fundamental restructuring

The study develops a new method to
measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture called
the Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) Model. A multinomial logit is
estimated to predict the probability of each AEZ in each
district. The average percentage of cropland and average
crop net revenue are calculated for each AEZ. Then an
estimate of the amount of cropland in Africa and where it is
located is provided. Using current conditions, the model

The study focuses on analyzing and
assessing some main features of the situation and the
implementation results of Comprehensive Poverty Reduction
and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) in order to identify major
challenges for economic growth and poverty reduction, which
will serve as the basis for the proposal of policy framework
to overcome the challenges as well as achieve the basic
targets for economic growth and poverty reduction in the

This report analyzes the
government's decision on the outcome of a series of
small power shifts triggered by pro-reform players. Reform
advocates devised them whenever opportunities arose and used
whatever maneuvering room there was to tilt the power
balance between agency and farmers to further the goals of
sustainability and partnership. The shifts were thought out
for their strategic value, but most came without a timeline

The author surveys the empirical literature on the political economy of agricultural protection. He uses a detailed data set of agricultural Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions over five U.S. congressional election cycles over the 1991-2000 period to investigate the relationship between lobbying spending and agricultural protection. A detailed graphical analysis of campaign contributions by the agricultural PACs indicates that although there are very many PACs, in most sectors the majority of contributions are made by very few PACs.

This Country-Level Effectiveness and
Accountability Review (CLEAR) examines the efficacy of
microfinance aid in Madagascar, based on an objective
analysis of donor assistance for the sustainable development
of financial systems targeting the poor. The three levels of
the financial system are the micro level (e.g., retail
institutions), the meso level (e.g., apex, technical service
providers), and the macro level (e.g., regulations and

The authors describe and analyze management in the Murray-Darling basin of Australia, long regarded as a model for integrated river basin management. This interior basin of over 1 million k

Economic progress in Macedonia has been
variable and slow during the last 10 years. This slow
progress is attributable to the succession of political and
economic shocks, and the failure to complete economic
reform. Agriculture is an important sector in the Macedonia
economy, with production and processing contributing around
18% of GDP. As a small economy with a structural deficit in
most food commodities, agricultural trade is essential for

This paper provides empirical evidence
of nonlinearity in the relationship between crop
specialization in a village economy and the extent of the
market (size of the urban market) relevant for the village.
The results suggest that the portfolio of crops in a village
economy becomes more diversified initially as the extent of
the market increases. However, after the market size reaches
a threshold, the production structure becomes specialized

As pesticide traders are important sources of information about the health impacts of pesticides, a crucial understanding of their perception is necessary to guide further pesticide information dissemination efforts through this channel. To this end, a 2003 survey of 110 Bangladeshi pesticide traders was conducted with questions on the pesticides in stock, knowledge and training in pesticide use and handling, sources of information, protective measures, and health effects.

This paper seeks to clarify how
valuation should be conducted to answer specific
environmental policy questions. In particular, it looks at
how valuation should be used to examine four distinct
aspects of the value of ecosystems: 1) Determining the value
of the total flow of benefits from ecosystems; 2)
Determining the net benefits of interventions that alter
ecosystem conditions: 3) Examining how the costs and

Agricultural protection, particularly in high income countries, have induced overproduction, thereby depressing world commodity prices and reducing export shares of countries which do not support agriculture. One-and perhaps the only-effective way to bring a socially acceptable and politically feasible reform is to replace payments linked to current production levels, input use, and prices by payments which are decoupled from these measures.