African Smallholders: Food Crops, Markets and Policy

Based on highly topical international research in a high-priority area, this book documents the farm-level effects of the reorientation of agricultural policies with different themes for the different countries such as micro-credit, infrastructure, cash crop production and food security. It discusses staple food production in sub-Saharan Africa and its response to changing geo-political, macro-economic and agricultural policy, to deepen our understanding of how agricultural development unfolds at farm level. It is a useful resource for all those researching or involved with food security, agricultural development and African food planning.

Djurfeldt (sociology, Lund U., Sweden), Aryeetey (The Brookings Insntitution, US), and Isinika (Sokoine U. of Agriculture, Tanzania) present a sequel to 2005's The African Food Crisis: Lessons from the Asian Green Revolution. They and their contributors repeat a cross-sectional survey of smallholders in 100 villages in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia and analyze the results in order to draw out village- and household-level effects of changes in agricultural policies and other macro-level processes, particularly in light of a shift in the policy climate away from the nostrums of neoliberalism towards a greater emphasis on food self-sufficiency. Distributed in the US by Stylus Publishing. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)