The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently gave Michigan State University (MSU) a $4 million grant to lead a three-year research project in sub-Saharan Africa. The intent of the research is to help the area’s governments and private stakeholders find a way to improve the lives of the rural poor.
The project will focus on analyzing the region’s small farm markets, infrastructure and development strategies in order to increase agricultural productivity.
Specifically, researchers will investigate the structure, performance and potential of food and horticultural markets, focusing on maize, cassava, sorghum, cotton and vegetables. They’ll also assess the impact of investments such as rural road construction on market development and on poor households’ access to those markets.
“Experience in Africa has confirmed many times over that effectively linking small-holder farmers to markets is a crucial element of poverty reduction,” says Thomas Jayne, project co-director and MSU professor of international development.
The research will encompass eastern, western and southern Africa, but focus on Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique and Zambia.
“If this project succeeds, we’ll see many more small farmers in Africa linked up to agricultural markets,” Jayne says. “We’ll also see more stability in the food system and more urban consumers in Africa getting the food that they need. It can happen, but the right kind of public and private investments need to be put in place to make it happen.”
Source: Michigan State University
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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