Evans School Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR)

The commercial alcohol industry in Africa may provide opportunities to increase market access and incomes for smallholder farmers by increasing access to agriculture-alcohol value chains. Despite the benefits of increased market opportunities, the high costs to human health and social welfare from increased alcohol use and alcoholism could contribute to a net loss for society. To better understand the tradeoffs between increased market access for smallholders and societal costs associated with harmful alcohol consumption, this paper provides an inventory of the societal costs of alcohol in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We examine direct costs associated with addressing harmful effects of alcohol and treating alcohol-related illnesses, as well as indirect costs associated with the goods and services that are not delivered as a consequence of drinking and its impact on personal productivity. We identified resources using Google Scholar and the University of Washington libraries, and utilized the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the World Health Organization’s Global Information System on Alcohol and Health (GISAH) database. We also utilized FAOSTAT to retrieve raw data on national-level alcohol production and export statistics. We find that hazardous alcohol use contributes to early mortality and morbidity, loss of productivity, property damage, and other social costs and harms for drinkers and those around them. Drinking also affects vulnerable segments of the population disproportionately. Policymakers, local authorities, and donor agencies can use the information presented in this paper to plan and prepare for the higher consumption levels and subsequent social costs that may follow through agricultural development and economic growth in the region.  

In Mozambique, the legacies of colonial rule, socialism and civil war continue to constrain economic growth and agricultural production. Eighty percent of Mozambique’s labor force derives its livelihood from agriculture, but the nation remains a net food importer. The majority of all farmland is cultivated by smallholders whose fertilizer usage and crop yields are among the lowest in Africa. While Mozambique has experienced reasonable economic growth since the end of its civil war in 1992, it remains poor by almost any measure. In this literature review, we examine the state of agriculture in Mozambique, the country’s political history and post-war recovery, and the current fertilizer market. We find evidence that smallholder access to fertilizer in Mozambique is limited by lack of information, affordability, access to credit, a poor business environment, and limited infrastructure. The data demonstrate that increased investment in infrastructure is an important step to improve input and output market access for smallholders. The main government intervention currently impacting smallholder fertilizer use is the Agricultural Sector Public Expenditure Program (PROAGRI) initiative, however, more data is necessary to assess the impact of its policies and programs.

Smallholder farmers in Africa are largely located in poor rural areas, are often geographically dispersed, and have limited access to road and communication infrastructure, thus raising the cost of market participation. This is especially true for farmers growing relatively low value staple crops. This literature review summarizes research on the challenges and innovations in linking smallholder producers of staple grains to markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on post-harvest issues including storage, aggregation, and transportation. For each post-harvest stage, we describe challenges faced by farmers and current efforts to address these challenges. In our review, we find a large amount of literature on the constraints to smallholder production and marketing but relatively few examples of innovative or novel technologies designed to improve storage and transportation for rural smallholder producers in Africa. Existing technologies have often been available for some time but have not seen widespread adoption, apparently due to high costs or inadequate funding for on-farm testing and extension. We conclude that the literature is somewhat divided as to whether interventions linking smallholder farmers to markets should be entirely market-driven and focus on linkages that can be profitable without subsidization, or whether NGO- and donor-driven interventions should play a role.

Yam is a major staple in West and Central Africa and an important supplementary food in East Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), virtually all yams are produced for human consumption, with women responsible for processing yams for consumption. This brief provides an overview of the role of women in yam production, and provides a framework for analyzing barriers to women and technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle. We find that though yam was traditionally considered a man’s crop, it is clear that women farmers contribute greatly to yam cultivation, especially during weeding, harvesting, and processing. Propagation of improved varieties with resistance to pests and diseases like yam mosaic disease has great potential to benefit women farmers. Increased yields and lower post-harvest losses will increase household food security.  However, because yams extract high amounts of nutrients from the soil, soil and land management techniques are necessary to ensure future gains in yield. Women’s groups serve as potential venues for dissemination of new yam cultivation and processing technologies.  Additionally, women’s groups can undertake new propagation techniques as income generating activities.  Women farmers need increased extension efforts to fully benefit from technology improvements.