Abstract: Policies regulating the international grain trade in Southern Africa (SA) are motivated by uncertainty regarding private sector performance and, in turn, private sector performance is generally constrained by the policy environment. We study spatial price transmission between SA maize markets where trade is dominated by informal product flows. This provides an opportunity to study private sector market performance in a largely unregulated market environment. Contrary to some existing evidence on the performance of SA grain markets connected by formal trade, we find that informally trading markets work quite well. Long-run price equilibrium is consistent with competitive trade, price transmission is rapid, and potential trade constraints have no disruptive impact on long-run relationships. Nevertheless, we do find evidence of occasionally high transfer costs that may impede informal trade flows. The conclusion is that a policy focus on encouraging informal trade and lowering informal trade costs would lead to improved market performance.

Abstract: This study uses panel data to demonstrate two dimensions of land ownership: the distribution between households at a given time and changes within a household over time. We note that recognizing the latter dimension is only possible when analyzing rare long-term panel data. We estimate a model for land ownership using a version of the correlated random effects estimator to uniquely identify the determinants of both dimensions amongst Kenyan smallholders. We find life cycle effects are a key determinant of both distributions, and identify important ways in which initial conditions such as inheritance and off-farm income relate to the dynamics of ownership. We find that population density is a key determinant of differences between households, but also that a given household’s land ownership is not affected in the short term as population density increases around them. Controlling for population density, households own more land when they are closer to road networks where the economic value of land is higher. We find important vulnerabilities for the land security of widows, but this vulnerability is geographically heterogeneous.

Frontiers in Food Policy: Perspectives on sub-Saharan Africa is a compilation of research stemming from the Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series, hosted by the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The series, and this volume, have brought the world's leading policy experts in the fields of food and agricultural development together for a comprehensive dialogue on pro-poor growth and food security policy. Participants and contributing authors have addressed the major themes of hunger and rural poverty, agricultural productivity, resource and climate constraints on agriculture, and food and agriculture policy, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil. It has also received considerable attention from environmental and social non-governmental organizations as a driver of deforestation and land consolidation. While many researchers have examined the impacts of soybean production on human and environmental landscapes, there has been little investigation into the economic and institutional context of Brazilian soybean production or the relationship between soy yields and planted area. This study examines the influence of land tenure, land use policy, cooperatives, and credit access on soy production in Brazil. Using county level data we provide statistical evidence that soy planted area and yields are higher in regions where cooperative membership and credit levels are high, and cheap credit sources are more accessible. This result suggests that soybean production and profitability will increase as supply chain infrastructure improves in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes in Brazil. The yields of competing land uses, wheat, coffee, and cattle production and a complementary use, corn production, also help to determine the location of soybean planted area in Brazil. We do not find a significant relationship between land tenure and planted area or land tenure and yields. Soy yields decline as transportation costs increase, but planted area as a proportion of arable land is highest in some of the areas with very high transportation costs. In particular, counties located within Mato Grosso and counties within the Amazon biome have a larger proportion of their arable, legally available land planted in soy than counties outside of the biome. Finally, we provide evidence that soy yields are positively associated with planted area, implying that policies intending to spare land through yield improvements could actually lead to land expansion in the absence of strong land use regulations. While this study focuses on Brazil, the results underscore the importance of understanding how supply chains influence land use associated with cash crops in other countries.

The American Midwest is suffering through the driest summer in decades, and Stanford economist Walter Falcon is watching the corn wither in his fields. He writes how the drought is affecting crops, prices and the livelihoods of his fellow farmers in Iowa.