Food Grain Marketing Development In Ethiopia After The Market Reform 1990

This report addresses the overarching question regarding the role of institutions in enhancing market development following market reforms. It uses the New Institutional Economics framework to empirically analyze the role of a specific market institution, that of brokers acting as intermediaries to match traders in the Ethiopian grain market in reducing the transaction costs of search faced by traders. Brokers play a key role in facilitating exchange in a weak marketing environment where limited public market information, the lack of grain standardization, oral contracts, and weak legal enforcement of contracts increase the risk of contract failure. Relying on primary data, it analyzes traders' microeconomic behavior, social capital, the nature and extent of their transaction costs, and the norms and rules governing the relationship between brokers and traders.The study uses an innovative approach to quantify the costs of search and demonstrates that the brokerage institution is economically efficient both for individual traders and for global economic welfare.

The long-term reduction of hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the great challenges for the international development community. Eliminating hunger and promoting widespread growth in the region inevitably involves agriculture, given its central role in the region’s economies. Over the past 20 years, most African governments have carried out reforms to deregulate agricultural markets and reduce the role of state enterprises. How much has the state actually withdrawn from agricultural markets? Have well-functioning private markets emerged? How successful were these reforms in boosting agricultural production, economic growth, and the incomes of the rural poor? What lessons can we learn from the reform process? The authors of this book address these questions through an analysis based on an extensive review of experiences with reform, focusing on three major agricultural markets: fertilizer, food crops, and export crops. They examine the historical rationales for intervention, the factors contributing to reform, the process of implementation, and the impact of the reforms on farmers and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors find that reforms have had many favorable results, but that the impact has been muted by partial implementation and structural constraints. They propose a new agenda for promoting the development of agricultural markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, identifying areas where governments can play a supportive role. They argue that appropriate agricultural marketing policies and investments can improve livelihoods and the economic health of the region.

This study has analyzed the factors affecting common bean production and marketing decisions by agricultural households in Malawi. The empirical results from applying the triple hurdle model to the IHS3 data demonstrate that different sets of factors affect smallholder farmers’ production, market participation and the intensity of participation decisions with respect to common beans. The location of the farmer, ownership of a radio, receipt of production extension services and FISP benefits, distance to main road and distance to the nearest market affected the agricultural household’s decision to produce common beans.