Policy options for fertilizer subsidy reforms in Rwanda: A simulation-based analysis and synthesis of prior studies

Policy options for fertilizer subsidy reforms in Rwanda: A simulation-based analysis and synthesis of prior studies
Author: Spielman, David J.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2022-10-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Agricultural input subsidies are a prominent feature in the 2018-2024 Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA 4), which is designed and implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI). By reducing the cost of improved seed and inorganic fertilizers, subsidies are designed to accelerate the use of these productivity-enhancing inputs, thereby increasing agricultural yields and output, increasing rural incomes while reducing food prices, and improving food security in line with PSTA 4’s targets. However, questions arise about whether the current input subsidy rates and levels are sufficient to increase crop production and meet the PSTA 4 targets, and whether the subsidy system can be expanded in the current economic climate and fiscal situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and spike in global fertilizer prices. This paper examines the impact of an increase in the price of fertilizer in Rwanda using seasonal production data from National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) in a microsimulation model aimed at three priority crops—maize, rice, and Irish potato—and the three main fertilizers in use—diammonium phosphate (DAP), urea, and NPK.

Fertilizer subsidies in Malawi: From past to present

Fertilizer subsidies in Malawi: From past to present
Author: Benson, Todd
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2024-02-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Malawi has been at the center of the debate on agricultural input subsidies in Africa ever since it significantly expanded its fertilizer subsidy program about two decades ago. When it did so, Malawi was a trailblazer, receiving international attention for seemingly leveraging the subsidy program to move the country from a situation characterized by food deficits and widespread hunger to crop production surpluses. In this paper we trace the history of Malawi’s subsidy program over the past 70 years, describing how the country arrived at that watershed moment earlier this century and how the subsidy program has developed since. We show how donor support for the program has wavered and how external pressure to remove the subsidy has repeatedly been unsuccessful. We also demonstrate how over the years the program’s total fiscal burden has fluctuated significantly. However, we find that since the expansion of the subsidy program in 2004, the fiscal costs of the program have shown little correlation with the maize harvest that same agricultural season. We show that the subsidy program has succeeded in raising awareness about the value of the fertilizer for increased crop productivity. However, despite its continued prominence in the country’s agricultural policy, most Malawian smallholder do not manage to grow sufficient maize to feed their households throughout the year, and every year millions depend on food assistance during the worst months of the lean season.

Agricultural Producer Subsidies

Agricultural Producer Subsidies
Author: David Amaglobeli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2024-08-26
Genre:
ISBN:

The objectives underlying agricultural output subsidies can have conflicting implications for the design of subsidy programs. As they tend to affect meaningful swaths of the electorate, subsidies can also be an attractive political instrument. By artificially lowering production costs or assuring higher output prices, direct support measures can result in resource misallocation in instances where they fail to address market failures, such as imperfect information about the returns to fertilizers. Subsidies can also contribute to fertilizer overuse, harming the environment and the agricultural sector in the long term. Furthermore, agricultural production subsidies are often fiscally costly and unfavorable compared to alternative uses of public funds—both within the agricultural sector and outside it—to achieve the same ends. Various design and implementation challenges amplify the shortcomings of producer subsidy programs.

Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition

Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition
Author: Mara van den Bold
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2013-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider women’s empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, women’s empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of women’s empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventions—cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs—on women’s empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on women’s empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on women’s empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventions—specifically home gardening and dairy projects—show mixed impacts on women’s empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on women’s empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on women’s empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.

Agricultural Input Subsidies

Agricultural Input Subsidies
Author: Ephraim Chirwa
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199683522

This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

The Nigerian Rice Economy

The Nigerian Rice Economy
Author: Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2016-08-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0812293754

In The Nigerian Rice Economy the authors assess three options for reducing this dependency - tariffs and other trade policies; increasing domestic rice production; and improving post-harvest rice processing and marketing - and identify improved production and post-harvest activities as the most promising. These options however, will require substantially increased public investments in a variety of areas, including research and development, basic infrastructure (for example, irrigation, feeder roads, and electricity), and rice milling technologies.

The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform in India

The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform in India
Author: Regina Birner
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2011
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0896291723

Agricultural policy reform is one of the major challenges facing India today. Such reform is required to reduce poverty through faster agricultural growth and to promote more sustainable use of natural resources while ensuring food security. Subsidy policies that promote the use of fertilizer and of electricity for groundwater irrigation are in particular need of reform. While subsidies for these two inputs played a crucial role in achieving India's Green Revolution, they have been criticized during the past decade for benefitting large-scale farmers more than smallholders, placing a fiscal burden on the state, and having negative environmental effects. By analyzing the evolution of these input subsidy policies and examining the political processes involved in efforts to reform them, this study throws new light on the factors that have so far prevented a move toward more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable agricultural input policies in India. The authors show that electoral politics, institutional factors, and policy paradigms or belief systems all play an important role in blocking reform. They identify several policy reform options as well as political strategies that can overcome past obstacles to reform. Community-based policy solutions, new coalitions for policy reform, fresh approaches to the policy debate, innovative and consensus-oriented forms of deliberation, and effective use of research-based knowledge can all make positive contributions to Indian policy reform. The analyses and proposals presented in this study will be a valuable resource for policymakers and stakeholders concerned with the politics of agricultural development.

Effects of COVID-19 and other shocks on Papua New Guinea’s food economy: A multi-market simulation analysis

Effects of COVID-19 and other shocks on Papua New Guinea’s food economy: A multi-market simulation analysis
Author: Diao, Xinshen
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 51
Release: 2021-02-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Understanding how the Papua New Guinea (PNG) agricultural economy and associated household consumption is affected by climate, market and other shocks requires attention to linkages and substitution effects across various products and the markets in which they are traded. In this study, we use a multi-market simulation model of the PNG food economy that explicitly includes production, consumption, external trade and prices of key agricultural commodities to quantify the likely impacts of a set of potential shocks on household welfare and food security in PNG. In this study, we use a multi-market simulation model of the PNG food economy that explicitly includes production, consumption, external trade and prices of key agricultural commodities to quantify the likely impacts of a set of potential shocks on household welfare and food security in PNG. We have built the model to be flexible in order to explore different potential scenarios and then identify where and how households are most affected by an unexpected shock. The model is designed using region and country-level data sources that inform the structure of the PNG food economy, allowing for a data-driven evaluation of potential impacts on agricultural production, food prices, and food consumption. Thus, as PNG confronts different unexpected challenges within its agricultural economy, the model presented in this paper can be adapted to evaluate the potential impact and necessary response by geographic region of an unexpected economic shock on the food economy of the country. We present ten simulations modeling the effects of various shocks on PNG’s economy. The first group of scenarios consider the effects of shocks to production of specific agricultural commodities including: 1) a decrease on maize and sorghum output due to Fall Armyworm; 2) reduction in pig production due to a potential outbreak of African Swine Fever; 3) decline in sweet potato production similar to the 2015/16 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate shock; and 4) a decline in poultry production due to COVID-19 restrictions on domestic mobility and trade. A synopsis of this report, which focuses on the COVID-19 related shocks on the PNG economy is also available online (Diao et al., 2020).1 The second group of simulations focus on COVID-19-related changes in international prices, increased marketing costs in international and domestic trade, and reductions in urban incomes. We simulate a 1) 30 percent increase in the price of imported rice, 2) a 30 percent decrease in world prices for major PNG agricultural exports, 3) higher trade transaction costs due to restrictions on the movement of people (traders) and goods given social distancing measures of COVID-19, and 4) potential economic recession causing urban household income to fall by 10 percent. Finally, the last simulation considers the combined effect of all COVID-19 related shocks combining the above scenarios into a single simulation. A key result of the analysis is that urban households, especially the urban poor, are particularly vulnerable to shocks related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Lower economic activity in urban areas (assumed to reduce urban non-agricultural incomes by 10 percent), increases in marketing costs due to domestic trade disruptions, and 30 percent higher imported rice prices combine to lower urban incomes by almost 15 percent for both poor and non-poor urban households. Urban poor households, however, suffer the largest drop in calorie consumption - 19.8 percent, compared to a 15.8 percent decline for urban non-poor households. Rural households are much less affected by the Covid-19 related shocks modeled in these simulations. Rural household incomes, affected mainly by reduced urban demand and market disruptions, fall by only about four percent. Nonetheless, calorie consumption for the rural poor and non-poor falls by 5.5 and 4.2 percent, respectively.