Crop production forecasts are widely recognized as an important input into food balance sheets and for anticipating production shortfalls. However, the role of accurate crop production forecasting systems in mitigating food price instability and transitory food insecurity is often...

This brief summarizes detailed analysis of the determinants of household crop income in rural Mozambique from 2002 to 2005. Increased crop income is associated with increases in household land area, use of animal traction, crop diversification into tobacco or cotton, access to market price...

This brief summarizes detailed analysis of the determinants of household crop income in rural Mozambique from 2002 to 2005. Increased crop income is associated with increases in household land area, use of animal traction, crop diversification into tobacco or cotton, access to market price...

National food security in Malawi depends on improving the performance of maize markets. Ensuring that grain is consistently available at tolerable prices is crucial for consumers’ food security. At the same time, surplus producing farmers need to receive farm-gate prices consistently above...

• The Zambia Urban Consumption Survey, a survey of 1,865 urban households in Lusaka, Kitwe, Mansa, and Kasama, was conducted in August 2007 and February 2008 by the Central Statistical Office in collaboration with the Zambia Food Security Research Project. • Survey results indicate that in...

After two decades of de-urbanization, Zambia is again becoming increasingly urban. While the urban share of the population fell to 35% in 2000 due primarily to the decline of the copper industry, over half of Zambia’s people will be residing in urban areas by 2040. Given this urbanization...

The world food and financial crises threaten to undermine the real incomes of urban consumers in eastern and southern Africa. This study investigates patterns in staple food prices, wage rates, and marketing margins for urban consumers in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia between 1993 and...

Zambia's record-breaking maize harvest of nearly 2.8 million metric tons (MT) in 2010 is a major achievement and a testimony to what input subsidies, output price incentives, and favorable weather can do to elicit a major supply response. Maize-growing smallholders harvested more than in...

This paper provides a systematic definition of food security, focusing on its different dimensions; examines the nature and magnitude of the different dimensions of food insecurity in developing countries; discusses the difficult tradeoffs that policy makers face in trying to address food...

From 1997-2007, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Title II monetization programs sold more than US$200 million of food aid wheat and unrefined vegetable oils in Mozambique. This research has three objectives: 1) to document the lessons learned from past monetization...