AgBEE Snapshots
In January 2012, the Enabling Agricultral Trade (EAT) Project published two new AgBEE Snapshots outlining the business enabling environment for agriculture in the Jordanian and Palestinian economies. These documents provide an overview of the impediments to agribusiness expansion and profit in each economy, leading to recommendations for further research along five crucial areas in the lifecycle of a successful agribusiness operation – accessing inputs, accessing finance, operating a business, linking to markets, and competing fairly are identified.
For example, in Jordan, poor water management, coupled with distorted incentives for smallholders and exacerbated by inconsistent government policies, is one of the core policy issues preventing the sector from reaching full potential. In the Palestinian Economy, agribusinesses are severely limited by national and regional policies that obstruct their access to land, water, agricultural inputs, and markets.
This publication was produced by USAID’s Enabling Agricultural Trade (EAT) Project, implemented by Fintrac Inc.
Dr. Joseph Cortes received his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the National University of Columbia and went on to the University of Campinas, Brazil, to conduct his M.Sc. studies in Post-Harvest Technology. At Mississippi State University, he completed his Ph.D. in Seed Technology. He was also at the Seed Unit of CIAT for 7 years as a Research and Training Associate, covering all of Latin America. He has served as the Program Leader of the Global Seed Program at Iowa State University since 1991, after serving for four years in Peru as a leader in a seed systems USAID development project.
Mark Huisenga specializes in the due diligence of agricultural investments, including commercial, legal and regulatory assessments of the agriculture sector on AgCLIR assessments in Ghana and Tanzania. Currently he serves as Senior Program Manager at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Food Security. Prior to joining USAID, he was an agriculture value chain consultant, advising among others the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Market Access Program’s business plan. Formerly he served as director of Agriculture and Rural Economy for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, including oversight of MCC’s investment in Ghana’s seed sector reform, as well as investments in Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Morocco and Mozambique. As sector coordinator and associate at ARD, Inc. director of new business development and as a market analyst for Cargill Technical Services, he worked on a broad range of agribusiness projects worldwide. As associate director at the IRIS Center, Department of Economics, University of Maryland (United States), Huisenga advised on institutional and regulatory reform programs in Asia. He earned a master’s degree from the American University’s School of International Service, Washington, D.C., and a bachelor’s degree in earth science and agriculture from Montana State University.
Judith A. Chambers currently serves as Director of the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS) at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. PBS is an international program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist emerging nations in the development and implementation of science-based regulatory systems to permit the responsible introduction of genetically enhanced crops and organisms. Prior to assuming her role at PBS, she was the President of Emerging Market Solutions, a Virginia-based consulting company targeted to assist private and public sector organizations in the areas of market development, issues management and public-private sector program collaboration in the developing world.
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