Agricultural and Rural Development Notes
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This series on commodity risk management aims to disseminate the results of World Bank research that describes the feasibility of developing countries’ ability to utilize market-based tools to mitigate risks associated with commodity price volatility and weather.
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Publication
Agricultural Innovation Funds
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011-05)In order for agricultural development to fulfill its potential role as a source of growth and reducer of poverty, it must be constantly renewed through knowledge and innovation. Getting resources into the hands of innovators and providing incentives for producers, agricultural service providers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate in developing and applying new methods and technologies is a priority among institutions concerned with agricultural knowledge. While grants have long been used to finance agricultural innovation, in many countries there has been a shift away from block grant funding and towards the use of innovation funds. These are used to provide incentives and resources for investment and collaboration between innovators, producer groups, private entrepreneurs, and public institutions. Innovation funds allocate grants to targeted applicants based on a system for evaluating the eligibility, relevance, and quality of applicants' proposals. -
Publication
Gender and Governance in Agricultural Extension Services : Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-03)The gender and governance in rural services insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia report aims to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies for improving agricultural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project has been implemented in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia. These countries were chosen to capture variation in important macro-factors, especially the level of economic development; various aspects of governance, such as political system and party system; the role of women in society; and strategies adopted to promote gender equity. The project focused on agricultural extension as an example of a critical agricultural service. In India, the main problem is the lack of overall capacity resulting from a past policy of not hiring agricultural extension providers. The study indicates that access to agricultural extension is low in Ghana, despite the fact that an extension agent-to-farmer ratio is comparatively high. Agricultural extension is a high for the Ethiopia government priority, but coverage of extension services across regions varies widely, and extension agents have limited discretion to adapt technology packages to the context of individual communities. The gender gap in access to extension can also be improved. -
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Empowerment and Poverty Reduction through Infrastructure and Service Provision in Rural Pakistan
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-01)Poverty in Pakistan is overwhelmingly rural. Some two-thirds of Pakistan's population, and over 60 percent of the country's poor, live in rural areas. In 2005, average per capita expenditures in rural areas were 31 percent lower than in urban areas. This inequality between urban and rural areas is re-enforced by inequality within and between rural areas. Owing to uneven access to land and useable water, most of the increased income that results from agricultural production accrues to higher income farmers-who typically spend a disproportionate amount of their income on urban goods and services. This inequality seriously limits the impacts of agricultural growth on rural poverty, and is a major cause of sustained poverty and low productivity among small farmers and rural nonfarm households. It also points to the importance of effectively targeting the poor in contexts in which resources intended for them are likely to be captured by more privileged groups. -
Publication
Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant : Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)Stimulating agricultural growth is critical to reducing poverty in Africa. Commercial agriculture, potentially a powerful driver of agricultural growth, can develop along a number of pathways. Yet many developing regions have failed to progress very far along any of these pathways. Particularly in Africa, agriculture continues to lag. During the past 30 years the competitiveness of many African export crops has declined, and Africa's dependence on imported food crops has increased. While the poor performance of African agriculture can be attributed partly to adverse agroecological conditions, experience from elsewhere in the developing world suggests that significant progress is possible. The Guinea Savannah covers some 600 million hectares in Africa, of which about 400 million can be used for agriculture. Less than ten percent of this area is currently cropped, making it one of the largest underused agricultural land reserves in the world. -
Publication
Improving Agricultural Productivity and Markets : The Role of Information and Communication Technologies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04)Raising the productivity of smallholders is a necessary condition for increasing incomes and improving livelihoods among the rural poor in most developing countries. This increased productivity is essential to both household food security and to agriculture-based growth and poverty reduction in the larger economy. Smallholder productivity is limited by a variety of constraints including poor soils, unpredictable rainfall, and imperfect markets, as well as lack of access to productive resources, financial services, or infrastructure. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are also vitally important to commercial and large-scale agriculture, and to agriculture-related services and infrastructure such as weather monitoring and irrigation. This note focuses on the sometimes less-obvious importance of ICT in improving the information, communication, transaction, and networking elements of smallholder agriculture in developing countries. -
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Tracking Results in Agriculture and Rural Development in Less-Than-Ideal Conditions : A Sourcebook of Indicators for Monitoring and Evaluation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03)The demand for verifiable evidence of results and impacts of development agricultural programs and projects is growing. However, most of the indicators that development practitioners have traditionally used in tracking progress toward achieving projects' objectives focus on the workings of the development operation itself. These performance indicators relate mainly to lower-level inputs and outputs and are used to populate management information systems. Higher-level indicators are used to measure progress in achieving the ultimate objectives of projects, and in bringing about larger outcomes and impacts. The ability to measure and demonstrate outcomes and impacts relies on the use of indicators that are based on reliable data and on the capacity to systematically collect and analyze that information. The conditions in which monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are carried out vary widely, depending on the demand for information, the extent to which it is used to inform decision-making, and the reliability of the systems that are in place to capture and convey that information. Throughout much of the developing world these conditions are "less-than-ideal," and information is irregular and often lacking altogether. In these conditions there is a lack of effective demand for information on the part of policy makers. The conditions are often especially pronounced for data related to rural areas, where the costs of data collection are high and the quality of existing data is particularly low. Building data systems and developing and supporting capacity for M&E in these conditions is, therefore, a pressing imperative for interventions in the agriculture and rural development sector. Strengthening capacity for M&E begins at the national and sub-national levels, where addressing the weaknesses of national statistical systems is a common priority. The data collected and reported within countries must not only be of sufficient quality to inform planning and policy formulation but must also be consistent between countries. -
Publication
Foreign Investment in Agricultural Production : Opportunities and Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01)The recent surge in food and fuel prices has prompted countries with high dependence on food imports to try and lock in future food supplies through direct investment in agricultural production in other countries. The price surges also led to a wave of proposals to invest in biofuels investments in agricultural land. While such investment can provide large benefits, it also carries considerable risks both to investors and citizens in the locality of the investment. To ensure that investments provide broad benefits and effectively contribute to larger development outcomes, enforceable property rights and contractual agreements in many developing countries need to be strengthened. This note considers how development partners can help countries create the pre-conditions for investment and proposes a governance framework to establish minimum standards for it. -
Publication
Managing Drought Risk for Food Security in Africa : An Innovative Solution in Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01)Malawi periodically experiences drought leading to shortages of grain on the domestic market and a sharp increase in consumer prices. Consumers, including many of the poorest farmers in the country, experience difficulty obtaining enough grain to meet their family requirements. One method to reduce the risks of grain shortfalls is to improve the capacity of farmers to produce enough grain even when drought occurs, for example, through input subsidies and efforts to improve water use efficiency. An additional measure is to finance the establishment and distribution of strategic grain stocks. However, in the occasional year when drought is most extreme, supplementary assistance will still be needed in the form of expensive food imports and, possibly, food aid. -
Publication
From Agriculture to Nutrition : Pathways, Synergies and Outcomes
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-07)This note discusses the direct pathways through which agricultural production can contribute to improved nutrition. It then reviews recent changes in the global environment which affect the ways in which agriculture and nutrition are linked. It concludes with a discussion of how nutrition-related objectives can be effectively incorporated into the design of agriculture programs for maximum impact on the poor. -
Publication
Assessing the Investment Climate for Rural Enterprises
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-05)The 2008 World Development Report identifies competition as an important variable of the rural investment climate. Competition triggers innovation and the productivity gains that drive economic growth, and with it the creation of jobs. Employment is generally the principal pathway that people have out of poverty. Fostering such competitive environments entails inducing the entry of local, mainly small-and-medium enterprises as well as the development of agribusinesses that enable small farmers, entrepreneurs, and investors to participate in expanding markets. The barriers to entry confronting prospective small rural enterprises include all the risks and costs and market failures characteristic of many rural economies, in addition to poor access to financial and public services, weak business skills, and extremely limited or non-existent information about what demand consists of in the non-local markets they hope to sell to. Improving the opportunities and incentives for rural firms to invest productively, expand, and bring on new workers should be a policy priority for governments, particularly given the prominence of policy, regulations, and enforcement in rural investors' perception of risk. Providing a sound, enabling policy environment is a vital role of the government and public sector and includes setting food quality and safety grades and standards and reliable contract enforcement. Such stable policy environments go very far in relieving investors' uncertainty over what governments will do next, what policies will be formulated, and how policies and regulations will be interpreted and enforced. This is a pressing concern among investors. Making policy formulation and enforcement more predictable can dramatically encourage investment (World Bank 2005).