Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications
Event Information
Reducing global poverty and hunger requires accelerating growth in the agriculture sector through improvements in sustainable productivity. Smallholder farmers have the potential to increase productivity through the application of technology and knowledge, and through participation in input and output markets. Constrained by lack of resources, aversion to risk, and access to markets, smallholder farmers can benefit from assistance directed to their needs. Subsidizing quality inputs of seed and fertilizer to raise productivity has been a policy tool used for decades in developing economies, although economic efficiency has been poor.
Over the past decade, fertilizer (and seed) voucher schemes dubbed “smart subsidies” have been used by national governments and donors with various objectives and with questionable results. In particular, several governments in sub-Saharan Africa hurriedly introduced voucher schemes to subsidize fertilizer in response to the international fertilizer price spike of 2007 and 2008. This presentation, based on lessons learned, sets out the essential objectives of voucher schemes; the detailed planning and targeting required for successful, beneficial, and efficient implementation; their role as just one tool in sustainable market development; and the need for exit strategies from the usually high and unsustainable support cost.
Speakers
Ian Gregory
IFDC
Ian Gregory is an agribusiness market development specialist with 40 years experience in agro-inputs marketing. His current responsibilities are to provide assistance on project design and implementation and agribusiness technical assistance to the IFDC EurAsia Division Program. He managed IFDC’s agribusiness development projects for ten years, and from 2002 to 2005 served as director of the Market Development Division. He has been extensively involved in designing, implementing and monitoring agro-input voucher programs in Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa. Since joining IFDC, he has provided technical assistance and training in agri-input marketing, financial analysis, pre-feasibility studies and policy development and implementation in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Russia. He has authored or co-authored more than 35 publications and technical reports on agri-input marketing systems, marketing and project pre-feasibility in developing countries. He prepared an extensive range of training materials for IFDC. Prior to joining IFDC, he served as a corporate business analyst with Incitec Ltd. in Australia for 19 years. He was previously a farm extension advisor in the United Kingdom and Australia. He was awarded a B.S. in agricultural science and agricultural economics and an M.S. in crop husbandry from University of Wales, United Kingdom.
David Rohrbach
World Bank
Dr. David Rohrbach is a Senior Agricultural Economist for the World Bank, currently based in Dar es Salaam. During the past five years he has managed components of the Bank’s agricultural portfolio in Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe. This includes support for fertilizer voucher programmes in all three countries. Prior to joining the Bank in 2006, he worked in various institutes of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) including CIMMYT (1983), IFPRI (1988-94) and ICRISAT (1988-2006). He has resided and worked in southern Africa for the past 26 years – mostly on issues of agricultural technology change, crop improvement, market development and commodity risk management.