Policy Brief 18
By Andrew Dorward, Peter Hazell and Colin Poulton
February 2008
Agricultural input subsidies were a common element in agricultural development in poor rural economies in the 1960s and 70s, including successful green revolutions. Although subsidies have continued, to a greater and lesser extent, in some countries, conventional wisdom as well as dominant donor thinking in the 80s and 90s was that subsidies had been ineffective and inefficient policy instruments in Africa, which contributed to government over-spending and fiscal and macro-economic problems.
