Since the early 1980s, donors and international These reform experiments have revealed eight lending agencies have promoted the reform of main lessons: agricultural marketing as a central component of economy wide structural adjustment programs in Africa. Although the record of implementation has often been slow and uneven, staple food marketing policy has been transformed over this period. The...

Given the large share of major staples in the budgets of the poor, governments in many developing countries intervene in food markets to limit variation in the prices of staple foods. This paper examines the recent experience of Madagascar in stabilizing prices through international trade and the implications of adjustments in tariff rates. Using a partial equilibrium model, we quantify the ove...

Low-income countries spend a greater portion of their budget on food and are more responsive to income and food price changes than middleand highincome countries. Higher value food products undergo greater budget adjustments to price and income shocks, while budgets for staple food products like cereal change the least. 1 Anita Regmi and Jason Bernstein are agricultural economists, and M.S. Dee...

A diet that excludes the gliadin and glutenin protein fractions in wheat, rye and barley is the only treatment available for individuals with coeliac disease. There is, however, a growing enthusiasm for a gluten-free diet (GFD) or wheat avoidance in those without formally-diagnosed coeliac disease for its perceived benefit on health, weight loss, treating disease and/or minimising future risk o...

Since 1981, through structural adjustment programme, the agricultural sector has undergone several reforms which were expected to raise the incomes of smallholder farmers and hence increase their entitlement to food through the market. Data from the national household survey, however, show that most of smallholder farming remains subsistence. Only 10 percent of households sold their maize while...

Fortifying commonly eaten foods with vitamins and minerals is a recognized, effective strategy for decreasing micronutrient deficiencies at a population level. National fortification initiatives often do not impact remote communities who may be unreached by commercially produced food. In this paper, we review the innovative implementation of community based fortification of staple grains in rur...

Micronutrients are essential for a healthy life. Humans do not produce micronutrients, and hence they must obtain them through the foodchain. Staple crops are the predominant food source of mankind, but need to be complemented by other foodstuffs because they are generally deficient in one or the other micronutrient. Breeding for micronutrient-dense crops is not always a viable option because o...

Food security has emerged as an urgent concern because of the rising world population. To meet the food demands of the near future, it is required to improve the productivity of various crops, not just of staple food crops. The genetic diversity among plant populations in a given species allows the plants to adapt to various environmental conditions. Such diversity could therefore yield valuabl...