MOTIVATION
As the hottest year on record, 2012 saw droughts and decreasing global grain production. The resulting spike in grain prices led a number of countries (including Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia) to impose restrictions and bans on grain exports in an effort to protect domestic food security. Such steps tend to be counterproductive, however, making prices more volatile and markets less stable. In 2012, IFPRI was commissioned to evaluate the maize export ban in Tanzania.
OUTCOMES
Findings indicated that the maize export ban actually increased poverty, hurt the rural poor, and benefitted the urban rich. The research findings were presented at a critical time when the Tanzanian government was rethinking the export ban policy in June 2012. In September of that year, the Tanzanian government lifted the ban, citing at length a number of the conclusions from IFPRI’s study. In his announcement of the ban’s reversal, Prime Minister Mizenga Pinda quoted IFPRI’s report directly in his keynote speech at the Accelerating Agricultural Transformation in Tanzania through Partnership conference and explained that “the research provided clear and convincing evidence on the export ban” and that the government was taking steps to “deal with the findings.” The Prime Minister went on to announce that the Government had lifted the export ban.
