The world will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This rapid rise in
population will require farmers to increase agricultural production by
at least 50 percent. Smart and balanced regulations and policies, along
with responsible investments, will be crucial if the needed food supply
is to be sustainably produced and distributed.
In addition, one-third
of the world’s workforce is engaged in agriculture, and 750 million
poor, equivalent to about two-thirds of the global poor, work in
agriculture. Clearly, if poverty is to be eradicated, more efficient
agricultural value chains which can generate more on and off-farm jobs
will need to be in place.
An enabling environment for the business of
agriculture is, thus, critical for addressing the challenges ahead.
Policies, regulations, institutions, infrastructure, support services
and market conditions together shape what is often referred to as the
enabling business environment. In many ways, their configuration,
interaction and capacity generate the climate or scenario in which the
range of value chain participants operate and grow. Improved knowledge
and understanding of this business environment leads to formulating
better strategies that make business transactions more efficient,
facilitate entrepreneurship, increase investment, and enhance market
competitiveness and growth.
Enabling the Business of Agriculture
The
Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project focuses on
identifying and monitoring regulations that negatively affect
agriculture and agribusiness markets. EBA aims to inform and encourage
policy decisions that support inclusive participation in agricultural
value chains and foster an environment that is conducive to local and
regional businesses in agriculture.
Eighteen indicators, covering six
topics, have been developed to address aspects related to production
inputs and market enablers that facilitate farmers, firms and producers
to sell their goods and services. The indicators developed and measured
in this year’s report cover the following topics:
- Seed
- Fertilizer
- Machinery
- Finance
- Transport
*- Markets
Four
additional topics are under development and will be included in next
year’s report. These are: Information and Communication Technology
(ICT); Land; Water; and Livestock.
Two overarching themes—gender and
environmental sustainability—have been explored to ensure that the
indicators being developed encourage inclusive and sustainable
practices.
The EBA indicators are of two types in nature. De jure or
“legal” indicators stem directly from reading the laws and regulations
in order to measure relevant aspects of regulatory quality. De facto or
“time and motion” indicators reflect the efficiency of a country’s
regulatory environment, such as the number of procedures and the time
and cost to certify seed for sale in the domestic market, register
fertilizer products or export agricultural goods. All indicators use
specific rules that are applied equally across countries to ensure that
the data are comparable.
Current data and analysis are available for 40 countries.
The
EBA project is being scaled up to cover more than 60 countries in next
year’s edition. Countries to be added include Armenia, Benin, Cameroon,
Egypt, Haiti, India, Italy, Republic of Korea, Liberia, Malawi,
Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Senegal, Serbia,
Thailand, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe.
EBA is a joint project of the World
Bank’s Agriculture Global Practice and Global Indicators Group The
Agriculture Global Practice defines the World Bank’s strategic direction
in agriculture, develops and deploys expertise globally, delivers
integrated solutions while capturing and leveraging knowledge
effectively for maximum development impact needed to end poverty and
boost shared prosperity. The Global Indicators Group, which is part of
the World Bank’s Development Economics network, produces global datasets
that document and explore the relationship between business environment
reforms and key development outcomes. The group’s products include the
Doing Business report; Women, Business and the Law; Enterprise Surveys;
and Subnational Doing Business, amongst others.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the most frequently asked questions about the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project.
What is Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA)?
Enabling
the Business of Agriculture (EBA) is a World Bank Group initiative that
focuses on identifying and monitoring regulations and policies that
affect agriculture and agribusiness markets. The project aims to inform
and encourage policy decisions that support inclusive participation in
agricultural value chains and foster an environment that is conducive to
local and regional business in agriculture.
Why is the World Bank Group supporting EBA?
The
world will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This rapid rise in
population will require farmers to increase agricultural production by
at least 50 percent. The bulk of the expected increase in global food
demand will be driven by urban markets in developing countries, offering
local and regional players a huge opportunity to supply these markets.
Smart and balanced regulations and policies, along with responsible
investments, will be crucial for unleashing growth in the vital
agribusiness sector and ensuring that the needed food supply is
sustainably produced and distributed. Measuring the regulatory framework
and other associated variables will enable a better understanding and
management of countries’ enabling environment. Ultimately, this
represents an important step in ending poverty and boosting shared
prosperity.
.
What topics does the project cover?
EBA
developed six scored topics, namely seed, fertilizer, machinery,
markets, transport and finance, and defined good practices used to
assign scores.
Five more topics are still under development. The
scope of two topics - land and information and communication technology
(ICT) - is being restructured. Two new topical areas have been developed
during 2014- 2015 - water and livestock. And two cross-cutting
themes—gender and environmental sustainability—have been introduced and
analyzed in Enabling the Business of Agriculture 2016 report.
What does EBA not measure?
Many
elements that shape a country’s enabling environment are not captured
by EBA indicators. Broader macro-level aspects pertaining to the
political, social and economic spheres of a country, for example, shape
the climate of its economy, but are not now an area that EBA covers.
Policies,
institutions, infrastructure and support services—many shaping a
country’s capacity to implement and enforce its regulatory framework—are
also key determinants of the enabling environment that Enabling the
Business of Agriculture 2016 has not targeted. Other variables
characterizing the market—such as prices, stock market trends,
government expenditures or investments—are not directly comparable and
require a methodology outside the scope of EBA’s current capacity. While
EBA is interested in expanding into these areas, they are not covered
by this report’s indicators.
Much activity in rural areas, from
employment to production and the sale of goods, happens through informal
channels. The complexity of regulations, and the time and cost they
impose, could be reasons for this, as could the quality of institutions,
extension services and physical infrastructure. The current focus of
indicators presented in this report is on measuring official laws and
regulations and not these other areas.
Benchmarking has its benefits
and limitations. Quantitative data and benchmarks can be very effective
in stimulating debate about policy, enhancing the ability of policy
makers to assess progress over time and making meaningful international
comparisons. However, the need of using assumptions in order to ensure
global coverage and comparability across countries can come at the
expense of generality and discount some context specific information. To
address some of these limitations, and fully understand what package of
regulatory reforms is most effective in a country and how these issues
are shaped by the context, it is critical to collect data consistently
over a number of years as well as to combine global benchmarks with
context specific information.
How does EBA treat land issues?
Securing
access to land is critical for millions of poor people. Land and
associated real estate is in many contexts a households’ most important
asset. How land is accessed or allocated, at what price and what rights
are assigned to producers will have far-reaching impacts on productivity
by affecting (i) potential entrepreneur’s (women’s and men’s) ability
to make risky agricultural or non-agricultural investments; (ii) the
scope for efficiency-enhancing transfers of land to its best use that
also promotes equity; and (iii) financial intermediaries ability to
provide products that can support investments in this area.
Given
the nature of the land topic and the legitimate interests involved,
further consultations will be carried out and some new areas could be
included next year, such as the cost of registering group rights, the
time and cost of land surveying process, the procedural safeguards in
case of expropriation and the management of land records. These
developments will contribute to the development of a more balanced
scoring methodology.
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