Market structure and efficiency in agricultural value chains: Deep dives in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic
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World Bank ; FAO ;
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Hunger and malnutrition remain critical developmental challenges in Central America. Since 2020, rates of moderate and severe food insecurity have risen across the region, while key indicators in early childhood nutrition persist at high levels across both lower- and upper-middle-income states. Rising food prices play a key role in limiting access to healthy and affordable diets for the populations of these countries. In 2022 and 2023, food price inflation reached or exceeded 10 percent in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Across almost all of these countries, white maize prices remain more than 40 percent higher than their levels in 2021, while prices for red and black beans rose by 40 percent to 90 percent over the same period. These price increases have disproportionately affected poorer and rural households. This report represents a context-specific approach to analyzing market structures and dynamics that may contribute to price distortions in two country-commodity pairs in Central America: white maize in El Salvador, and bananas in the Dominican Republic.