Researchers awarded for farm subsidy work in Africa
The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association has bestowed the Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis on a team led by Thomas Jayne, professor in the MSU Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics.
Over the past five years, the multi-institutional team has carried out award-winning research and policy engagement activities that influenced the design, implementation and scale of input subsidy programs in several African countries and broadened thinking about these programs in the region, said Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute. The team’s work has been utilized in the programming decisions of the World Bank, USAID and other strategic partners.
“Their research was cutting-edge in bringing new methods to the analysis of subsidy impacts, as reflected in the large number of extensively cited publications from their work,” Derek Byerlee, professor at Georgetown University said. “In the face of considerable vested interests, their research results were a major influence on the reform of subsidy programs in both Zambia and Malawi.”
“These research findings revealed new insights that have helped the Malawi government redesign the subsidy program to make it more profitable to farmers as well as recommendations on how to make it more sustainable,” he said.
source: msutoday.msu.edu
