It is an oft-heard statement: Investments in agriculture result in higher productivity and prices of staple foods dropping, which in turn stimulates overall economic growth alleviating poverty.

However, while increased and more efficient agricultural production allows consumers to enjoy lower food prices, improvements in productivity may have adverse implications for producers, depending on the extent to which cost reductions compensate for the decline in output prices.

This question of possible adverse effects has been investigated for the case of Benin in the study “Ex-ante Analysis of the National Investment Plan for Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security of Benin: Is the envisaged productivity growth pro-poor”, published by the Agricultural Policy and Innovation Fund (GV FABI).