Globally, the transfer of funds by migrants to their home countries or areas (cash remittances) have grown rapidly over the past two decades and are now at an all-time high. The World Bank (2015) estimates that international remittances reached $436 billion in 2014, and predicts that they will increase to $500 billion by 2017 (Figure 1). These figures, which exclude transfers through informal channels, far exceed global flows of official development assistance (ODA). Comparable data for internal remittance flows is ‘non-existent’ (McKay and Deshingkar, 2014), but may significantly exceed cross-border cash remittances. There is much debate about what kinds of...

Rural-urban linkages in a rapidly urbanising world require much more attention from researchers and policymakers. As this report shows, several key findings have emerged from the existing literature on food remitting. The following sections focus on: international cross-border migration within the African continent and associated flows of cash and food remittances; internal migration and food remittances; a comparison of rural-urban and urbanurban food remittances; the frequency and types of food remitting; and food remitting in rural areas.

Much of the literature on rural-urban linkages assumes that they are bounded by the borders of the country concerned. Yet many countries in...

The inter-connections between urbanisation, migration and rural-urban linkages in the first 20 years of Zimbabwean independence have been well documented (Andersson, 2001; Andersson Djurfeldt, 2012; Potts, 2000, 2010a; Potts and Mutambirwa, 1990). The post-2000 economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, which reached its height in 2008, is also well documented (Chan and Primorac, 2007; Chiumbu and Musemwa, 2012; Derman and Kaarhuis, 2013). The crisis led to the mass exodus of migrants to neighbouring countries such as Botswana and South Africa, as well as further afield to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States (Crush and Tevera, 2010; McGregor...

Even in ‘normal times’ urban migrant households rely to varying degrees on informal, non-marketed food remittances to survive in precarious urban environments. Frayne (2004: 489) has argued that ‘rural-urban social relations that are fostered and maintained by the migration process are fundamental to the ability of poor urban households to survive’. This observation is confirmed by Frayne’s own research on two-way or reciprocal rural-urban-rural remitting in Namibia and also by work by Owuor in Nakuru, Kenya. As stated earlier, Owuor (2003, 2010) found evidence of extensive remitting of cash, clothing, building materials, farm inputs and items for funerals from town...

The research literature and policy discussions on the impact of migrant remittances – at global, regional and national scales – focus almost exclusively on cash remitting. Connections between remittances and food tend to be confined to discussions of the impact of cash remittances on rural agricultural production and the widespread use of cash remittances by recipients to purchase food. The remitting of goods, and especially foodstuffs, across international boundaries and within countries has received little attention primarily, it seems, because these flows occur outside market channels. The result is that there is not much solid information on the volume, value...