This piece originally appeared on the A4NH blog.

As crop prices move throughout the year, they influence households’ consumption decisions, farmers’ production decisions, and traders’ marketing decisions. As such, it is important to understand price seasonality in local contexts in order to design appropriate policy interventions. A new working paper and policy note from IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program look at such price movements in grain prices in Kebbi state, Nigeria.

In late March, heads of state from 44 African countries met in Kigali, Rwanda to sign the framework agreement forming a new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) . If the agreement is ratified by all 55 member states of the African Union, the AfCFTA would establish one of the largest free trade areas in the world, covering over 1.2 billion people and $2.5 trillion in GDP.

The FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) has released several new country briefs and updates for Africa south of the Sahara.

Since June 2016, FEWS Net has followed the market situation in Nigeria; the country faces continuing economic challenges due to a global decline in crude oil prices and a depreciation of the national currency, as well as ongoing conflict in the northeastern regions. In the latest Nigeria Market Monitoring Bulletin , FEWS Net provides several updates of the implications of these challenges for the country and the region.

Several countries in Africa south of the Sahara faced the threat of famine and high food assistance needs in 2017, and FEWS Net is reporting that little change is expected in the coming year .

Hunger levels in Africa south of the Sahara remain among the highest in the world, according to the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI) , released today by IFPRI, Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe.

Since the food price crisis of 2007-2008, there has been significant attention paid to the issue of price transmission from global to national markets, particularly in developing regions such as Africa south of the Sahara. A new paper published in the Journal of Agricultural Economics looks at seven key food security crops in Nigeria - maize, millet, sorghum, rice, cassava, yams, and cowpeas - to assess local (both urban and rural), regional, and international price transmission.

The FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) has released updated country briefs for Ethiopia and Tanzania. These briefs provide up-to-date food security and agricultural information, as well as forecasts for cereal imports and production and other food security-related indicators.

The latest series of updated country alerts from FEWS Net provides food security and food production updates for several countries in Africa south of the Sahara.