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42. Biosafety of GM Crops in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania
- Author:
- Judith A. Chambers
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Against a background of rapid global adoption rates and two decades of safe use, the overly cautious approach to genetic modification (GM) technology in agriculture by African governments seems misplaced. To date, only three African countries are engaged in commercial production of GM crops, although others are experimenting with the technology. Among those African countries experimenting with the technology, several are proceeding along a path toward commercialization and reside geographically close in East Africa, where the potential for regional trade impacts and issues exist. An examination of their historical circumstance and experience with GM technology, and the resultant effects on regulatory policy, can offer some useful insights about the various factors that impact GM technology adoption in Africa, especially from the perspective of the biosafety policies enacted.
- Topic:
- Security, Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Food, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Kenya, Africa, and Tanzania
43. Is Poverty a binding constraint on Agricultural Growth in Rural Malawi?
- Author:
- Mirriam Muhome‐Matita and Ephraim Wadonda Chirwa
- Publication Date:
- 07-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
- Abstract:
- Agriculture remains the most important sector in sub‐Saharan Africa and is a dominant form of livelihood for a majority of the population that resides in the rural areas. In Malawi, agriculture accounts for 35 percent of GDP and generates more than 80 percent of foreign exchange. In addition, agriculture is the most important occupation for 71 percent of the rural population in which crop production accounts for 74 percent of all rural incomes. However, agriculture has failed to get Africa out of poverty, and most countries are experiencing low agricultural growth, rapid population growth, weak foreign exchange earnings and high transaction costs (World Bank, 2008). In Malawi, for a long time, economic growth has been erratic (see figure 1) with huge swings and poverty has remained high. For instance, the annual growth rates in per capita gross domestic product averaged ‐2.1 percent in the 1980‐84 period, ‐2.7 percent in 1990‐94 period, 3.8 percent in 1995‐99 and ‐0.2 percent in the 2000‐05 period.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, Political Economy, Poverty, GDP, Inequality, Economic growth, and Macroeconomics
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Malawi
44. Resources, risk and resilience: scarcity and climate change in Ethiopia
- Author:
- Alex Evans
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation
- Abstract:
- Ethiopia's resource scarcity context presents a daunting challenge, but also a significant opportunity. The country's current scarcity context includes: Low agricultural yields and farm sizes: Even if farm productivity were to increase by a factor of three, the average farm would still not produce enough food for a family of five. With 83% of Ethiopia's people directly dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, the country has a major food security challenge; 7.5 million people depend on food safety nets. Major exposure to drought: Ethiopia has erratic rainfall, and acutely limited water storage capacity: the country has only 43m3 of reservoir storage per person, compared to 750m3 in South Africa and 6,150m3 in North America. Levels of irrigation are also low: the World Bank estimates that only 5% of irrigable land in Ethiopia is actually irrigated. Limited access to energy: Ethiopia's total primary energy supply is less than 60% of the African average, and only just over a fifth of the global average. The country depends on waste and biomass for 90 of its energy needs – leading to consequences including deforestation, and soil degradation as a result of biomass not being returned to the soil. High dependence on imported oil and food: Ethiopia currently imports all of its liquid fuels and a significant proportion of its food. This creates major exposure to global commodity price volatility, with the attendant risk of balance of payments problems, inflation and outright supply interruptions.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, Economics, Poverty, Natural Resources, and Food
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South Africa, North America, and Ethiopia
45. 'Our Land, Our Lives': Time out on the global land rush
- Author:
- Kate Geary
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Today, stories of communities driven from their lands, often at the barrel of a gun, left destitute and unable to feed their families, have become all too familiar . As the scale and pace of large - scale land acquisitions increases globally, evidence is mounting that the land rush is out of control and that the price being paid by affected communities is unacceptably high. A huge amount of land has been sold off or leased out globally in the past decade: an area eight times the size of the UK. In poor countries , foreign investors bought up an area of land the size of London every six days between 2000 and 2010. Commercial interest in land could accelerate once again as recent food price spikes motivate rich countries to secure their own food supplies and make land a more secure and attractive option for investors and speculators. The 2008 boom in food prices is widely recognized as having triggered a surge in investor interest in land : from mid - 2008 – 2009 reported agricultural land deals by foreign investors in developing countries rocketed by around 200 per cent .
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Poverty, Natural Resources, Territorial Disputes, and Food
- Political Geography:
- Africa and United Kingdom
46. Coalition-driven initiatives in the Ugandan dairy sector: Elites, conflict, and bargaining
- Author:
- Fred Muhumuza, Anne Mette Kjær, and Tom Mwebaze
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- The dairy sector is one of the only agricultural sectors in Uganda that has enjoyed sustained high growth since the late 1980s. Milk and the cold dairy chain developed especially in the south-western part of the country. This paper explains why this is so by the sector's relation to the ruling coalition. We argue that the dairy sector was relatively successful because the south-western based ruling elite wanted to build a support base in its home area. In addition, the elite had a special interest in dairy since key elite members owned dairy cattle themselves. As milk production grew, the ruling elite wanted to regulate the sector as this would help the big processor, the state owned and later privatized Dairy Corporation. Regulation was relatively successful and a pocket of bureaucratic efficiency was established in an agency called the Dairy Development Authority. The reason why regulation was enforced to a considerable extent was the organization of dairy farmers and traders and the bargaining and compromise with the Dairy Development Authority this organization of industry actors enabled.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, Government, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
47. Developing a Palm Oil Sector: The Experiences of Malaysia and Ghana Compared
- Author:
- Lindsay Whitfield and Niels Fold
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper explores what can be learned about the development of a productive sector and the factors that affect the process of upgrading and innovation, through a comparative assessment of the experiences of Malaysia and Ghana in the palm oil sector. The purpose is not to carry out a direct comparison of the trajectories of the sectors in the two countries, which would serve only to emphasize the failures in the 'construction' of the palm industry in Ghana. Rather, the role of context must be acknowledged, such that learning starts with understanding key points in the industries' trajectories that either break or accelerate path dependency. Thus, the paper focuses on the differing contextual factors and initial conditions, and how they shaped early divergent paths and industry structures, as well as the presence or absence of factors supporting expansion and diversification within each country's trajectory.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Malaysia
48. The structure and dynamics of cut flower export markets from Kenya and Ethiopia
- Author:
- Brian D. Perry
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- This report is part of a broad study of trade preferences and market conditions between various developing countries and Norway, conducted under the auspices of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Norway's Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was established in 1971. From 2002 Norway has provided duty and quota free market access (DQF-MA) for all goods from all the 50 least developed countries (LDCs3). In 2005 the results of a review of Norway's GSP were published (Melchior, 20054), which showed that agricultural products from developing countries other than LDCs were still subject to substantial tariffs, and this contrasted dramatically with advantages given to European trading partners. As a result, from 1 January 2008 changes were made to Norway's GSP5. An important adjustment was that 14 low income countries that were not part of the LDC group were included in the provision for duty and quota-free market access (DQFMA). Consequently, 64 low income countries now benefit from DQFMA to Norway for all their goods.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Africa, Norway, and Ethiopia
49. Sahel Markets Under Pressure
- Author:
- Jean Denis Crola
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Harvests in Africa's Sahel region from the 2011/12 season are down sharply compared with last year and have been later than usual, extending the previous 'hunger gap' period. A further aggravating factor for the people of the region is that local grain prices failed to drop as they generally do in the period after the harvest. In December 2011, prices reached levels that were 80% above their five-year averages and remained at high levels, compromising access to adequate food for vulnerable populations. Together with the main agencies involved in the crisis, Oxfam, ROPPA, RBM, APESS, POSCAO and WILDAF estimate that more than 18 million people are currently in a situation of food insecurity in the Sahel.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Demographics, Poverty, Food, and Famine
- Political Geography:
- Africa
50. Growing but not transforming: Fragmented ruling coalitions and economic developments in Uganda
- Author:
- Anne Mette Kjær and Mesharch Katusiimeh
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and its leader, Yoweri Museveni, came to power, they had an explicit agenda of industrializing the economy (Kjær and Muhumuza, 2009). Improved infrastructure and increased production and productivity were the focus. Indeed, Uganda enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth of about 7 percent annually between 1990 and 2006 (Piron and Norton, 2004; Kjær and Muhumuza, 2009), made possible by a stable ruling coalition, macro-economic stability, low inflation (until recently), and relative peace. Poverty declined from 56 percent in 1991 to 25 percent in 20101 However, there has been limited structural transformation in terms of a shift from agriculture to industry. A number of explanations for this could be put forward, whether institutional, policy-oriented or geographical (Selassie, 2008; van de Walle, 2001). None of them, however, explains fully how Uganda, in spite of an initially highly dedicated ruling elite, did not succeed in transforming its economy. For example, Uganda is a landlocked country, but so is Zimbabwe, which is far more industrialized. Similarly, while Uganda certainly has weak institutions, so did other countries that have succeeded in industrializing (Selassie, 2008).
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Post Colonialism
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, and Zimbabwe