With the elimination of fixed prices, consumers have learned to negotiate, comparison shop, and save money by taking grain to the mill instead of buying prepackaged meal. Maize meal is available throughout Zimbabwe and costs about 20 percent less than it did before reforms were initiated. Cheaper maize makes a big difference to poor Zimbabweans who spend almost 75 percent of their income on food. Similar changes have occurred in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. The changes enabled small traders to compete, expanding trade between rural and urban areas and providing incentives to producers.
Entrepreneurs set up mills to make cheap maize meal available to consumers.
In key urban areas, average prices for white maize, the principal domestically-produced staple, fell by about 40 percent over three years. Cheaper food makes a big difference to the poor. In Kenya, too, agricultural market reforms have increased farmers' earnings and provided low-income consumers with cheaper food. In 1993, the government eliminated movement and regulatory controls on the domestic marketing of cereals and rehabilitated 400 kilometers of rural roads. These changes resulted in increased competition and efficiency in cereal markets so that farmers could receive a higher proportion of the market price.