Other Agriculture Study

313 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2199

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Repurposing Agricultural Policies and Support: Options to Transform Agriculture and Food Systems to Better Serve the Health of People, Economies, and the Planet

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01-24) Gautam, Madhur ; Laborde, David ; Mamun, Abdullah ; Martin, Will ; Pineiro, Valeria ; Vos, Rob

The report finds that repurposing a portion of government spending on agriculture each year to develop and disseminate more emission-efficient technologies for crops and livestock could reduce overall emissions from agriculture by more than 40 percent. Meanwhile, millions of hectares of land could be restored to natural habitats. The economic payoffs to this type of repurposing would be large. Redirecting about $70 billion a year, equivalent to one percent of global agricultural output, would yield a net benefit of over $2 trillion in 20 years.
Strengthening Regional Water Security for Greater Resilience in the G5 Sahel

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-12) World Bank

The World Bank’s historical engagement in transboundary water in West Africa is at a turning point, at a time when the G5 Sahel region faces unprecedented challenges. Therefore, it is time for the World Bank to broaden its water sector approach in the G5 Sahel and shift its focus to establishing a regional water security framework. The dual objectives of this report on the G5 Sahel region are to: (i) do a high-level analysis of water security challenges and their impacts on regional socio-economic development and stability, and (ii) suggest directions for future World Bank engagement on regional water security. The focus of this note is more exclusively on regional water challenges and local challenges with cross-border or even regional spillover effects. The report takes a development-driven approach to: (i) identify some of the ways in which water security affects socio-economic development in the G5 Sahel, (ii) explore the linkages between water security, resilience and conflict prevention, and (iii) present a set of guiding principles for the next regional engagements on water security in the region, both in terms of types of investment and implementation modalities. This report will also serve as a basis for deepening the dialogue with counterparts in the next fiscal year.
Zambia's Farmer Input Support Program and Recommendations for Re-designing the Program

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21) World Bank

This note provides recommendations for redesigning Zambia’s Farmer Input Support Program (FISP) in the context of international experience with other similar programs, especially those in Africa. The objective of this note is to provide recommendations that can help in improving the current programs providing subsidized inputs to farmers, through enhancing the efficiency of the program, targeting the right beneficiaries, value perceived by beneficiary farmers, and probably bringing in savings. The note is a key deliverable under the Advisory Services work carried out by the Bank on strategies for food security in Zambia and Zimbabwe. This note has three sections following the summary: (i) a brief review of the evidence generated on input subsidy programs; (ii) specific recommendations for Zambia’s Farmers Input Support Program, and (iii) recommendations on complementary investments.
Angola Agriculture Support Policy Review: Realigning Agriculture Support Policies and Programs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-20) World Bank

This report assesses agriculture policy support estimates in Angola. These estimates represent the monetary value assigned to different agriculture support policies and programs using the OECD methodology for the years 2018–2019. The advantages of using the OECD methodology are that: (a) it provides a systematic and integrated view of agriculture support policies and programs (not limited to the more traditional public expenditure reviews or rate of protection); (b) given the large number of countries using this same methodology to measure support estimates, an immediate benchmarking is possible across a large set of comparators; and (c) the methodology is simple and can be integrated into the agriculture public policy analysis conducted by the Government and other stakeholders. The methodology also has some disadvantages and limitations, mainly: (a) while it quantifies the level of support provided to producers and consumers, it does not further disaggregate support received by type of agricultural producers (small-scale, large-scale; family farm, commercial) or consumers; (b) since the estimates are based on the monetary value of budget and price support, non-monetary support, like the quality of policies, is not captured (e.g., the methodology is able to identify how much policy/program support is invested in land administration efforts, but unable to qualify the impact (quality) of those policies/programs). This assessment aims to support the Angolan Government in reviewing its agriculture policies and programs, in particular to: (a) provide new estimates and a new approach to assess sector support for policy decision-making; (b) allow for benchmarking agriculture support policies with a large global database of countries using the same estimate methodology; and (c) help kickstart a policy dialogue on realigning agriculture policies and programs in Angola towards greater sector competitiveness and fast economic recovery from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, increased food security and nutrition outcomes, and climate sustainability through a build back better approach.
Nigeria Transforming Agribusiness for Inclusive Recovery, Jobs Creation, and Poverty Reduction: Policy Reforms and Investment Priorities

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-30) Mghenyi, Elliot W. ; Dankers, Cora ; Thurlow, James ; Anyiro, Chidozie

Modern economic policy making in Nigeria has placed enormous emphasis on diversification of the economy to non-oil productive sectors. With the aim to restore economic growth following the 2015-16 recession and lay the foundations for long-term structural change, the economic growth and recovery plan (ERGP) recognized the need to diversify the economy to non-oil productive sectors such as agriculture and agro-allied industries, in order to build an economy that can generate inclusive growth and create jobs. This report aims to improve understanding of the potential of the agribusiness sector (primary agriculture plus off-farm agribusiness) to accelerate inclusive recovery from the 2020 recession, create jobs, and reduce poverty. A key early finding of the report is that the agribusiness sector is critical to accelerating inclusive recovery and creating jobs. The report builds on this evidence to identify the specific value chain groups that have most potential to create jobs, reduce poverty, and improve nutrition outcomes. Next, the report offers to highlight the complex set of factors that mediate the performance of agricultural value chains, distinguishing between issues that pertain to upstream primary agriculture, those that affect downstream off-farm agribusiness and cross-cutting challenges. The agribusiness enabling environment takes center stage in this part of the report, focusing on policy reforms around seed regulations, fertilizers quality control, warehouse receipts, and agricultural trade. Finally, the report takes deep dives to identify reforms to increase competitiveness in the value chains that were found to have the most potential to create jobs, reduce poverty, and improve nutrition outcomes.
Russian Federation: Agriculture Support Policies and Performance

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-20) World Bank

Since 2013, the performance of Russian agriculture can fairly be described as remarkable. On average, Russian agriculture has been growing faster (3.3 percent per year) than gross domestic product (GDP) (0.9 percent per year). Increasing food exports and decreasing imports have led to a fall in the agricultural trade deficit from nearly US27 billion dollars in 2013 to about US5 billion dollars in 2018. As a result of this performance, Russian self-sufficiency targets have been met in all commodities except for milk production. Despite this positive trajectory, Russian agriculture is operating at less than its potential. Several studies have called attention to abandoned land as proof that Russian agriculture is underperforming. Currently, Russia uses just over half of registered agricultural lands (Uzun, 2017a). However, only 5-10 percent of total croplands could feasibly be brought back into production. Moreover, increases in gross agricultural output in OECD countries, as well as in Russia, come overwhelmingly from yield increases and not from increases in area. This report presents a general overview of Russian agriculture performance and policy, focusing on both the achievements of the past few years and the limits to that performance. It begins with a broad survey of production, land use, livestock, productivity and trade (chapter one). It then focuses on policies in the State Program for the Development of Agriculture in Russia, the types of support, distribution of subsidies, and the effectiveness of the Program (chapter two). It then focuses on how Russian support differs from support in OECD and other countries (chapter three). It ends with a conclusion on what can be done for Russian agriculture to operate closer to its potential (chapter four).
Uzbekistan: Agri-Food Job Diagnostic

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-28) World Bank

Jobs are among the most important economic and social concerns in Uzbekistan. This report takes stock of the job situation in Uzbekistan’s broader agri-food sector and shows pathways for increasing sustainable employment. It lays out a roadmap for operationalization of the implicit job agenda of the recently adopted agricultural strategy for Uzbekistan. The illustrative scenarios presented in the report show that public policies and investments can help the agri-food sector increase employment between 19 and 32 percentage points in 2030 compared to 2019, allowing annual creation of 0.7 to 1.3 million jobs, more than enough to absorb 600,000 young newcomers to Uzbekistan’s labor market (due to demographic reasons). Particularly the horticulture sub-sectors with strong comparative advantages and market opportunities has a potential for more productive and sustainable jobs. Those jobs will be inclusive, being available to women and youth not only in Tashkent and other large cities, but also in rural areas and secondary towns. And, they will be critical to raise people’s incomes and lift them out of poverty, as well as helping the agri-food sector enhance food security and supporting economic growth through its strong spillovers to regional and rural economies.
Improving Agricultural Interventions Under the New National Target Programs in Vietnam

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-08) World Bank

Vietnam has achieved remarkable economic development over the last few decades, realizing major gains in productivity and output and contributing to national goals related to poverty reduction and economic transformation, including an increase in per capita income. While Vietnam has become a major international player in global food markets, there remains a segment of the rural population that has not benefited much from the country's success in terms of economic growth, particularly the success of the agricultural sector. The main objective of this analytical work is to recommend improvements to some of the agricultural interventions under the new National Target Programs (NTPs). There are significant gaps in agricultural incomes between the regions, and between the poor and non-poor within the region. This suggests that agriculture transformation is yet to be completed, and there are untapped opportunities to further increase agricultural incomes of the poor. This report thus focuses on closing this gap in agriculture, as another pathway for out of poverty. Although this work started when the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic was not fully pronounced in Vietnam and around the globe, the pandemic has had significant influence on the national economy as well as the performance of the agricultural sector. The implementation of the recommendations highlighted in this report could help strengthen the strategies for post-COVID-19 (Coronavirus) economic recovery.
Climate-Smart Agriculture Implementation Brief: A Summary of Insights and Upscaling Opportunities through the Africa Climate Business Plan

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) World Bank

African countries are adopting a range of context-specific climate-smart technologies and practices to meet their food security and climate change goals. Improved livestock production is the most prevalent practice, followed by improved water management, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and, notably, digital agriculture. The application of digital technology in the design and delivery of integrated weather and market advisories using big data analytics is increasingly helping countries identify conditions that may endanger food security and inform farmers’ decisions to adequately respond to and, when possible, capitalize on, the changing conditions.
Promoting Agri-Food Sector Transformation in Bangladesh: Policy and Investment Priorities

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-27) World Bank

The agriculture sector has been critically important in reducing poverty in Bangladesh, and further progress in agriculture will remain important as Bangladesh’s economy continues to evolve. Declining agricultural productivity growth poses substantial risk to the development of the rural economy. There are substantial market opportunities for productive diversification and increased value addition for the agri-food sector in Bangladesh. The agri-food ecosystem analysis carried out for this study identifies critical constraints to the diversification and modernization of the agri-food sector. The Covid-19 (Coronavirus) crisis has hit Bangladesh’s economy and its agri-food sector hard and lasting impacts can be expected on the sector. The overall aim of this report is to identify policy and public investment opportunities for increasing agricultural diversification and creating an enabling business environment for private sector investment along the agri-food supply chain using the maximizing finance for development (MFD) framework. The report is intended to provide guidance to the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to implement and operationalize the strategic priorities of agricultural diversification and commercialization, as outlined in national agricultural policy 2018, to improve farms’ incomes, create rural jobs, and attain nutrition security in the country. The report is also intended to inform the World Bank’s strategies and dialogue for agriculture and rural development in Bangladesh and sharpen priorities for future engagement on agri-food sector modernization initiatives.