Madagascar food for progress evaluation : June 1-14, 1987

With respect to macroeconomic impacts, the report found that barriers to international trade in rice have been eliminated. With respect to food sector impacts, the report found that the FFP program "successfully accomplished its short-term goal of stabilizing prices for consumers in urban rice markets," and that the effectiveness of the buffer stock program was greatly aided by other rice supply factors in 1986-87. Private operators in all sectors of the rice trade enjoy increased access to the market; a dramatically smaller proportion of rice is sold through official channels at subsidized prices now. The report cautions, however, that the operation of the buffer stock has the potential for adversely affecting rice production and trade, since the government can be tempted to use the stocks to neglect the rural producers in favor of politically important urban consumers. This tendency of the government has resulted in some level uncertainty already, and thus operators have acted cautiously in production and trading. The bureaucratic management system supporting the buffer stocks is now unwieldy and stiff, and should be changed; the report also states that "AID needs to drastically improve its monitoring and oversight of the operations of the buffer stock." (Author abstract, from PN-ABD-893)