Agricultural Supply Chains, Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

This book investigates if and how agricultural market structures and farm constraints affect the development of dynamic food and cash crop sectors and whether these sectors can contribute to economic transformation and poverty reduction in Africa. The authors map the current cash and food crops supply chains in six African countries, characterizing their markets structures and domestic competition policies. At the farm level, the book studies the constraints faced by small holders to increase productivity and break out of a vicious cycle in which low productivity exacerbates vulnerability to poverty. In a series of micro case studies, the project explores how cooperatives and institutions may help overcome these constraints. This book will appeal to scholars and policy makers seeking instruments to promote increased agriculture productivity, resolve food security issues, and promote agribusiness by diversifying exports and increasing trade and competitiveness.

Dr. Nicolas Depetris-Chauvin is Professor of Economics and the Director of the EMBA at Haute école de gestion de Genève. He is also a Research Associate at the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), Professor of International Economics at Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a Research Fellow at the Oxford Center for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies at the University of Oxford. Professor Depetris-Chauvin is an international economist with extensive research and policy analysis experience in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. He has held academic positions at the University of Oxford, the Dubai School of Government, Sciences Po, and IEMS Skolkovo Business School among other. He has also worked as a researcher at the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. He has published several articles on the development economics, agriculture and food security, resource rich economies, emerging market economies, and the economies of the Gulf. He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Dr. Guido Gustavo Porto is a Professor of Economics at Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP). Previously he was an Economist at the Research Department of the World Bank. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University 2002. Professor Porto's research interest are international trade and economic development. He has studied how trade reforms affect poverty and household welfare, especially in developing and low-income countries. He also investigates how households, farmers and firms adjust to trade reforms and trade shocks. He has published several articles of these topics in leading professional journals.

Dr. Francis Mulangu is an agricultural economicst at the African Center for Economic Transformation(ACET). His responsibility includes leading ACET policy and research agenda in the areas of agriculture, agricultural value added, and agroprocessing as they relate to economic transformation, a work agenda that contributes to ACET's Africa Transformation Report ATR). Mulangu's academic work has focused on agricultural value chain and the role of farmer's grassroots institutions, climate change valuation, rainfall index insurance contingent credits, and trad and its implication on poverty and employee welfare in firms operating in developing areas. He holds an MA in Economics and Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Environmental, and Development Economics from the Ohio State University and a BS in Economics from the University of North Texas.