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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Ben Belton

Research Fellow

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Ben Belton

Bio

Ben Belton is a Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Dhaka. He is an applied interdisciplinary social scientist with more than 15 years’ field experience living and working in South and Southeast Asia, in countries including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, India, Cambodia, and Malaysia. Ben is a leading global scholar on aquaculture and fisheries development. His research interests are broad, spanning value chains, food systems, livelihoods, rural transformation, agrarian change, and their links to food and nutrition security, poverty, well-being, and the environment. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles on these subjects, using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to develop an evidence base for effective policy actions. In addition to his role at IFPRI, Ben holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor, International Development at the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University.

Publications

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Publications

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Working Paper

Rural-urban diet convergence in Bangladesh

2024Dolislager, Michael; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Ignowski, Liz; Nejadhashemi, A. Pouyan; Saravi, Babak; Tschirley, David
Details

Rural-urban diet convergence in Bangladesh

This paper seeks to bring concepts from economic geography and human geography into closer dialogue and apply them to the analysis of food systems. We analyze temporal and spatial patterns of diet trans formation in Bangladesh using data from nationally representative household surveys. We conceptualize diet transformation as a ‘triangle’ comprised of three elements (food purchases, diet diversification, and processed food consumption), influenced by four conditioners (time, income, non-farm employment, and space). We find that: (1) Diets are converging over time and space. food purchases, non-staples, and processed foods occupy high shares of food consumption value, irrespective of urban or rural location. Controlling for income, rural landless households and households in urban areas have very similar diets. Households in ‘peripheral’ and ‘non-peripheral’ rural areas experience similar levels of diet transformation. (2) Food purchases and processed food consumption are conditioned mainly by non-farm employment (NFE). (3) Diet diversification is positively associated with income, but not with NFE or land ownership. We characterize the spatial convergence of diets as an outcome of ‘time-space compression’ (the accelerating volume and velocity of economic and social transactions resulting from advances in transport and communications technology), and the distinct form of peri-urbanization under conditions of extremely high population density found in Bangladesh.

Year published

2024

Authors

Dolislager, Michael; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Ignowski, Liz; Nejadhashemi, A. Pouyan; Saravi, Babak; Tschirley, David

Citation

Dolislager, Michael; Belton, Ben; Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Ignowski, Liz; Nejadhashemi, A. Pouyan; Saravi, Babak; and Tschirley, David. 2024. Rural-urban diet convergence in Bangladesh. IFPRI Working Paper November 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Diet; Rural Urban Relations; Food Systems; Household Surveys; Food Prices; Food Consumption; Off-farm Employment; Economic Geography

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Asian Mega-Deltas

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Medium-scale livestock farms in Asia’s rapidly transforming food systems

2024Ebata, Ayako; Belton, Ben
Details

Medium-scale livestock farms in Asia’s rapidly transforming food systems

Academic and policy debates on agriculture emphasize a bimodal typology of ‘small-scale’ and ‘large-scale’ farms. In this article, we draw attention to the role and distinct characteristics of medium-scale monogastric livestock farms in the Global South, drawing on an empirically grounded typology of scale that incorporates three linked components: (1) Social and economic organization of production; (2) Technological choice and environmental impacts, and; (3) Food system linkages and spillovers. We review national livestock sector policy documents from three Asian countries – Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Vietnam – with reference to the typology, and compare assumptions embedded in the policies with the characteristics of farm scale revealed by the typology. Our analysis indicates that current policy goals are not well aligned with the characteristics of medium-scale livestock farming in the region. This disconnect presents a missed opportunity to enhance the livestock sector’s contributions to rural economies, nutrition security, food safety, and environmental performance. We conclude with examples of how policies could maintain and enhance medium-scale monogastriclivestock farms’ contributions to sustainable intensification, public health, and livelihoods.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ebata, Ayako; Belton, Ben

Citation

Ebata, Ayako; and Belton, Ben. 2024. Medium-scale livestock farms in Asia’s rapidly transforming food systems. IFPRI Working Paper November 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Bangladesh; Myanmar; Vietnam

Keywords

Southern Asia; Agriculture; Typology; Farm Size; Livestock; Policies; Rural Economics; Nutrition Security; Food Safety; Sustainability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Asian Mega-Deltas

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

Regional variations in rural livelihoods: Challenges and opportunities

2024Belton, Ben; Filipski, Mateusz; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Fang, Peixun
Details

Regional variations in rural livelihoods: Challenges and opportunities

Rural livelihoods in Myanmar are embedded in regional contexts that vary widely in terms of physical geography, climate and agroecology, local resource base, agrarian structure, infrastructure provision, proximity to urban areas and neighboring countries, social networks, institutions, and ethnicities. The composition of livelihoods in each administrative and geographic zone of the country reflects these diverse contexts. Marked variations in livelihood patterns are evident at multiple scales, from the zone or region down to township and village level, so that the composition of livelihoods in villages close to one another sometimes varies widely. Despite the high level of place-based specificity in the composition of livelihoods, many broad similarities and common trends shape livelihoods at subnational and national levels. These include generally low levels of agricultural productivity relative to other countries in the region in terms of both land and labor; high rates of landlessness, legacies of land confiscation, and unresolved struggles over land rights and access; and generally poor public infrastructure and services—including electricity, roads, schools, health services, and rural credit—though these were improving rapidly in many places before 2020; relatively low levels of diversification and capital in the rural nonfarm economy; high rates of international and domestic outmigration; and histories of ethnopolitical conflict and insecurity.

Year published

2024

Authors

Belton, Ben; Filipski, Mateusz; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Fang, Peixun

Citation

Belton, Ben; Filipski, Mateusz; Lambrecht, Isabel; and Fang, Peixun. 2024. Regional variations in rural livelihoods: Challenges and opportunities. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities. Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Masias, Ian; and Minten, Bart (Eds.). Chapter 18, Pp. 491-512. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155200

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

South-eastern Asia; Rural Livelihoods; Agricultural Productivity; Land Rights; Infrastructure; Household Surveys; Agroecology

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter