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World Food Day (October 16) 2023 focused on the theme “Water is Life, Water is Food. Leave No One Behind.” Water of sufficient quantity and adequate quality is essential to sustaining all life on Earth, including us humans. Yet, water is often taken for granted. This is largely due to the fact that its role in food systems and many other vital processes—including ecosystem health, energy production, and manufacturing—remains, on the whole, invisible.
Without much greater attention to and support of water’s essential roles in sustaining ecosystems, communities, and agriculture, food systems will increasingly “break”—leading to further increases in undernutrition and more humanitarian crises. Claudia Ringler, Director of IFPRI’s Natural Resources and Resilience Unit, discusses five key actions that can bring us closer to achieving water and food security for all.
(Read Blog | Watch Video)
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 Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Equity and Inclusion
Conference | November 1-2, 2023, Kathmandu, Nepal (in-person and virtual participation)
Can Sustainable Livestock Systems and Alternative Proteins Address the Climate Crisis?
CGIAR Seminar Series | November 7, 2023, 9:30-11:00 AM EST
The Political Economy of Food System Transformation: Pathways to Progress in a Polarized World
Book Launch | November 14, 2023, 3:00-4:30PM EST
Tackling Obesity and Noncommunicable Diseases in Mexico: A Policy Approach
33rd Annual Martin J. Forman Memorial Lecture | November 21, 2023, 9:00-10:30 AM EST
IFPRI @ 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28)
November 30, 2023 9:00AM to December 12, 2023, 5:30PM GMT +4, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Please check our Events page for most recent updates.
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2023 Borlaug Dialogue
On October 26, IFPRI and CGIAR hosted a breakout session “Food System Repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine War” at the 2023 World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue. The session attracted over 100 in-person attendees with many more joining online. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda (CGIAR System Board Chair) gave opening remarks and Charlotte Hebebrand (IFPRI) moderated the event. The expert panel included Dina Esposito (USAID), Antonina Broyaka (Kansas State University), Joseph Glauber (IFPRI), David Laborde (FAO), and Caitlin Welsh (CSIS). (Watch Event Recording)
On October 18, IFPRI, the Interamerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) co-organized a virtual side event “Climate Action for Resilient Food System Transformation – Policy and Institutional Insights from Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.” (Watch Event Recording | (Read Blog)
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Johan Swinnen, IFPRI Director General and Managing Director, Systems Transformation, CGIAR, welcomes the participants of the 7th Global Forum of Leaders for Agricultural Science and Technology (GLAST) which took place in Sanya, China, on October 25-28. The event was organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and CGIAR.
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IFPRI @ Adaptation Futures 2023 (October 2 – 6, 2023)
From Research to Impact: Towards Just and Resilient Agri-food Systems (October 9, 2023, 2023 CGIAR GENDER-ICAR Conference)
Micronutrient Forum: 6th Global Conference (October 16 – 20, 2023, Nutrition for Resilience (N4R)) – Stay tuned for more information about this exciting event in the next Insights issues!
A Look at Global Rice Markets: Export Restrictions, El Niño, and Price Controls (October 18, 2023, IFPRI-AMIS Seminar Series)
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Poor nutritional quality and micronutrient deficiency are major barriers to achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), especially in developing and least developed countries. Biofortification has been widely adopted as a relevant solution with potential for expansion and diversification. New technological advancements such as crop genome editing and nanotechnology can make biofortification even more effective. However, biofortification cannot be a stagnant solution—it must continue to be improved.
A new G20 Policy Brief co-authored by IFPRI’s Suresh Babu recommends evaluating biofortification as a solution and suggests a responsible research and innovation approach to improve it continually. The Brief proposes that the G20 commit to international initiatives that consider consumer needs and preferences in biofortification, while also adapting to the local context.
(Read Policy Brief)
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Loss and waste: In 2015, the United Nations and the G20 put food loss and food waste on the global agenda. While progress has been made since then, understanding the scale of the problem remains problematic because food loss and food waste are not measured separately. The paucity of data also poses a challenge. Luciana Delgado, Monica Schuster, and Maximo Torero review the measurements, causes, and determinants of food loss as well as the interventions to reduce it. (Read Article in Annual Review of Resource Economics)
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Water withdrawals: In India, the production of rice and wheat accounts for more than 80% of the country’s total agricultural water use. As farming is highly dependent on water availability, rapidly receding water levels require urgent measures to manage withdrawals. Vartika Singh and colleagues assess policy instruments that can reduce pressures on water resources, while at the same time limiting adverse impacts on water-intensive cereal production systems, land-use changes, and economic welfare. (Read Article in Environmental Research Letters)
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Rigor revolution: Impact assessment of agricultural research has a long and recognized tradition. James Stevenson, Karen Macours, and Douglas Gollins describe the implications of heightened standards of evidence for good practice in three domains of research design—causal inference, valid measurement, and statistical representativeness—to document advances in each of these domains and review recent evidence that demonstrates the lessons that can be learned from adopting these practices. (Read Article in Annual Review of Resource Economics)
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Any preference?: Evaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider the implications of how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different individuals within a household. Patrick Ward, David Spielman, and colleagues examine intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that shape smallholder households’ decision to use mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that disproportionately influences demand for women’s labor. (Read Article in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics)
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Communication is key: The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted nutrition and strained intrahousehold relations, particularly among poorer households. Social protection programs intended to mitigate these impacts mainly operated through handing out cash or in-kind items to vulnerable households. Catherine Ragasa, Isabel Lambrecht, Kristi Mahrt, and Zin Wai Aung assess the impact of adding nutrition and gender social and behavior change communication components in 30 villages in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Read Article in the Journal of Rural Studies)
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Global rice markets face stresses from El Niño, India export restrictions
On July 20, India banned exports of non-basmati price—aiming to cool rising domestic prices—a move many feared would drive rising global prices higher, as shown in the figure above. India’s actions have had impacts around the world, causing panic buying of rice in Canada and US grocery stores. At the end of August, Myanmar announced that it too would ban rice exports for 45 days; on September 1, the Philippines put price ceilings in place to cap retail rice prices.
A strengthening El Niño in the Pacific threatens to cut rice production of key Asian suppliers and push prices sharply higher. Joe Glauber and Abdullah Mamun provide a brief update on this apparently worsening global rice situation.
(Read Blog)
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From theory to practice: The latest in program implementation and effectiveness at Micronutrient Forum 2023: In the lead-up to the Miconutrient Forum’s 6th Global Conference, Mduduzi Mbuya, Director of Knowledge Leadership at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and Deanna Olney, Director of IFPRI’s Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, discuss the latest in program implementation and effectiveness to combat nutritional challenges and unlock human potential. (Read Blog)
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Introducing the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS): The global commitment to reaching Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, is only growing stronger. Tremendous growth in the number of metrics assessing women’s empowerment since 2010 has been achieved, but none of these metrics are concise enough nor applicable across a sufficiently wide range of contexts to be incorporated into nationally representative and multi-topic surveys. Emily Myers, Jessica Heckert, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Hazel Malapit, Greg Seymour, and Agnes Quisumbing discuss how the new Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) tool is a game-changer. (Read Blog)
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The most effective approaches to reduce intimate partner violence: What the evidence shows: Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global human rights and public health challenge. Recent estimates suggest that 27% of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, with the highest rates in low- and middle-income countries. IPV also has major implications for the health and well-being of women, their families, and communities. Jessica Leight takes a look at the most effective approaches to reducing IPV. (Read Blog) (Read Article in The Journal of Global Health)
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Battling the global 3Cs (climate change, COVID-19, conflict) through food systems shift: Geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather events, and economic shocks contribute to the recent halt in the decline of world hunger, IFPRI Director General Johann Swinnen noted in his keynote speech at the Tropentag 2023 conference in Berlin. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people struggle with inadequate access to food, and tens of millions are forcibly displaced. University of Bonn student Mary Grace Barbacias describes key strategies to build more resilient food systems. (Read Blog)
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Bridging ecology and economy with payments for ecosystem services: Globally, five out of six farms are operated by smallholders who produce around one-third of the world’s food. These farms provide a wide range of additional ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, pollination, and cultural and supporting services. Evidence suggests that payments for ecosystem services (PES) can diversify smallholder earnings and incentivize more sustainable farming and land management practices. A September 21 panel discussion at the Tropentag 2023 conference in Berlin focused on the challenges and opportunities of PES. (Read Blog)
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HarvestPlus’s ENRICH project’s main goal was to improve maternal and child nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life in rural areas of Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, ultimately aiming to reach over 800,000 women. To do this, programs were designed to address issues critical to the health of pregnant women, mothers, newborns, infants, and young children while simultaneously ensuring these interventions aligned with the policies and priorities of national Ministries of Health.
ENRICH delivered these gender-responsive interventions to increase the production, consumption, and utilization of nutritious foods during those first 1,000 days while strengthening gender-responsive governance, policy, and public engagement.
(Read Interactive Story)
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Asia’s rice squeeze after India export ban: 4 things to know: Nikkei Asia quotes IFPRI’s senior research analyst Abdullah Mamun in an article analyzing the reaction of Asian markets to India’s rice export ban. Mamun predicts that irregular weather “will create further price volatility that can last until the next cropping season arrives.”
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In Middle East, poor miss out as ‘faulty’ algorithms target aid: Reuters quotes Sikandra Kurdi, IFPRI Country Program Leader for Egypt, in an article analyzing new poverty assessment methods powered by algorithms. While not ideal, algorithmic tools are a reasonable option for countries that cannot afford universal social protection, said Kurdi.
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Qué está pasando en la guerra: Ucrania desafía a Rusia e impulsa una nueva ruta para transportar cereales en el mar Negro: El Diario (Spain) spoke with IFPRI senior research fellow Joseph Glauber for an article analyzing the recent developments in the grain market after Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and how Ukraine is now utilizing an alternative corridor to transport its grain. “So far, exports from the corridor have been too small to make many predictions about the future,” said Glauber.
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India is pushing the world toward another rice crisis: Mihir Sharma, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, in a Bloomberg op-ed republished in The Washington Post, refers to a recent analysis by IFPRI’s Joseph Glauber and Abdullah Mamun “which pointed out that although every rice eater in the wider world has felt the pinch, it is not the West that will suffer as a result of, for example, the ban on the export of non-basmati rice”.
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Healthy diets remain unaffordable for more than one-quarter of Viet Nam’s population. Poor-quality diets are a major driver of malnutrition in all its forms. Adolescents are of particular concern. In November 2022, IFPRI researchers from CGIAR’s SHiFT Initiative visited Viet Nam to explore and better understand food environments in local communities and around schools.
This photo essay breaks down what Gabriela Fretes, Phuong Hong Nguyen, and Jef Leroy observed and how adolescent’s are interacting with their food environments.
(Read Interactive)
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The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is pleased to announce that Pascal Lamy will begin his term as Chairperson of IFPRI’s Board of Trustees on 31 October 2023.
“I am delighted to welcome Pascal Lamy as the new Chair of IFPRI’s Board of Trustees,” said Johan Swinnen, Director General of IFPRI. “Mr. Lamy brings vast expertise on complex policy matters at the global, regional, and national levels and has supported IFPRI’s mission of a world free of hunger and malnutrition as a Board member since 2020 and as Chair of IFPRI’s Program and Strategy Council since September 2021.”
(Read Announcement)
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