Poverty Impact of Rising Maize Prices in Kenya (original) (raw)
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Food Pricing Policy and Rural Poverty: Insights from Maize in Kenya
2006
This study estimates the effects on poverty resulting from maize price changes associated with the operations of the maize marketing board in Kenya. We consider both supply and demand responses and the accompanying adjustments in rural labor markets in estimating a second order approximation to equilibrium income changes. We then use stochastic dominance techniques to generate poverty rankings between the distribution of income with the effects of the government marketing operations and the distribution of counterfactual incomes. This approach effectively addresses concerns regarding the sensitivity of poverty estimates to the type of poverty measure used. Results indicate that the price-elevating effects of government maize marketing operations have exacerbated rural poverty in all regions of the country except the region from which the largest part of surplus maize originates.
Agricultural Economics, 2011
This study estimates the effects of a large discrete maize price increase on the welfare of a sample of rural Kenyan households. The usual first-order welfare approximation formula is extended to a second-order formula that allows for supply and demand responses to the price change. Results show that many rural households are not affected greatly by the price change, and there are about as many gainers as losers. However, these full sample results mask important differences across regions. Welfare gains generally take place in major production areas while losses are in areas where most households are net buyers of maize. Semiparametric methods are used to investigate the relationship between income and the size of the welfare effect, and poverty dominance techniques are applied to study the impacts of the maize price increase on rural poverty.
2013
I wish to start by thanking God almighty because I would not have made it this far without His grace, blessings and guidance. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Associate Professor Patrick Kambewa and Dr. Regson Chaweza for the continuous support of my MA study and research, for their patience, motivation, enthusiasm immense knowledge and guidance. Besides my supervisors, I would like to thank Dr. Evious Zgovu, Dr. Richard Mussa, Associate Professor Blessings Chinsinga, Mr. Gowokani Chirwa and Mr. Alick Mphonda for their insightful comments and hard questions. My gratitude goes to the Evidence for Development and Self Help Africa for the financial support and the field work. I especially thank Dr. Celia Petty, Dr. John Seaman and Wolf Ellis whose comments helped to shape this work. I would also like to thank the team of research assistants that did an amazing job in data collection. Many thanks also go to my classmates at Chancellor College and the AERC Joint Faculty for Electives in Kenya, my friends, the lecturers and the rest of the staff at the Department of Economics for their support during the entire study period. In a special way I would like to thank my family for all kinds of support, motivation and encouragement. Dr. E. Zgovu your confidence in me has really carried me through. Last but not least my appreciation goes to my dear daughter Jameela Issat and dear Bashir Issat, my sisters Lydia and Ester Ngoleka for their love and care.
The impact of agricultural market liberalization on maize output in Kenya and Zambia and its effect on food security in these countries is evaluated in this paper. The findings suggest a weak policy influence on maize output, but the precipitation and acreage variables stand out as core determinants of maize output. Overall, the obtained results, agricultural markets in general, and the maize sub-sector in particular, responded more positively to implemented policies in Kenya, than in Zambia. Pre-existing economic structures would have contributed to the outcome. Effective policy implementation would have to be tailored to meet regional needs and local conditions. Region and sector dynamics were not considered when formulating and implementing structural adjustment policies in the 1980s. It can be inferred from the study that countries with strong economic institutions performed better than those which had weak ones.
Distributional Effects of Maize Price Increases in Malawi
Journal of Development Studies, 2014
In the wake of highly volatile world prices of staple commodities, we examine the impacts of increases in maize prices on various categories of households in Malawi. Using household-level data, changes in household income are calculated taking into account the net maize production status of the household and food price elasticities estimated from a censored demand system. While maize price increases have unequivocal deleterious effects on the incomes of urban households, rural households experience differential impacts. Net producing households in rural areas benefit from price increases with households above the poverty line obtaining proportionally higher incomes.
What are the Effects of Input Subsidies on Maize Prices? Evidence from Malawi and Zambia
2013
Millions of smallholder farm households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are net consumers of staple crops, and millions of poor urban households spend a significant share of their income purchasing staple foods. Recent research has underscored the major effects of changes in food prices on poverty, with the weight of the evidence indicating that rising food prices exacerbate poverty and food insecurity. Large-scale input subsidy programs, particularly for maize, have grown in popularity in SSA over the last decade. An important hypothesized but heretofore empirically untested benefit of these programs is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor, who tend to be net buyers of maize. To inform debates related to this rationale for input subsidies, this study estimates the effects of fertilizer subsidies on retail maize prices in Malawi and Zambia using market or districtlevel pan...
2013
An important hypothesized benefit of large-scale input subsidy programs in Africa is that by raising maize production, the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers. To inform debates related to this rationale for input subsidies, this study estimates the effects of fertilizer subsidies on retail maize prices in Malawi and Zambia using market or district-level panel data covering the 2000/01 to 2011/12 maize marketing years. Results indicate that roughly doubling the size of Malawi's subsidy program (i.e., increasing the amount of subsidized fertilizer distributed to each district by 4,000 metric tons per year) reduces maize prices by 1.2% to 1.6% on average. In Zambia, roughly doubling the scale of the country's subsidy program (i.e., increasing the amount of subsidized fertilizer distributed to each district by 1,000 metric tons per year) reduces maize prices by 1.8% to ...