Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricutural Policies in Africa

The synthesis report by FAOs Monitoring African Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) team, is the first ever attempt to systematically analyze agriculture and food security policies in several African countries, using common methodology over years. The report found that the policy environment and performance of domestic markets depressed producer prices by an average of ten percent between 2005 and 2010, though price disincentives are declining. Most governments adopted market and trade policies to protect consumers and keep food prices down in the reference period, whilst budgetary transfers were mainly used to support producers. The report concludes that producer prices would improve significantly if market distortions from inefficiencies in domestic value chains were eliminated through better targeted policies and public spending. These inefficiencies, however, seem to be increasing in all ten countries surveyed. The current MAFAP partne