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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

Emily Schmidt

Emily Schmidt is a Senior Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. Her most recent research explores household livelihood strategies in Papua New Guinea, including linkages between agriculture, poverty, and nutrition outcomes among rural smallholder farmers.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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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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countries and regions

Publications

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Journal Article

Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective

2024Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David
Details

Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective

Outsource agricultural service enterprises emerged a century ago in high-income countries and in the past several decades in developing regions. We contribute by analyzing and illustrating the emergence of these services from the perspective of phases of the Product Cycle. These services help farmers adapt to international and domestic agrifood value chains: (1) in the commoditization phase, e.g., with rice combine harvesting services in China and Myanmar for domestic and export markets; (2) in the early product differentiation phase into quality traits, e.g., with horticultural services to Ethiopian and Indonesian farmers for urban wholesale markets; (3) in the advanced product differentiation phase into environmental traits, e.g., with A-Z services to help French farmers grow eco-labeled vegetables for supermarkets. These services addressed farmers’ shortfalls in information, skills, labor, and equipment. The services are supplied by medium/large farmers with excess capacity say of a combine; by wholesalers who want to reduce search costs and risks; by input “agro-dealers”; and by agribusinesses servicing their outgrowers. In new cases shown in France, outsource firms partner with farm input companies such as Bayer or with robot/drone companies. Governments have – and can do much more to – support the emergence of these services such as in developing regions today through: (1) promotion of a business ecosystem, based on policies of investment in hard and soft infrastructure, favoring the coadaptation of these firms with farmers’ needs; (2) policies facilitating access, such as through import liberalization, of equipment and seeds and chemicals.

Year published

2024

Authors

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David

Citation

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Belton, Ben; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Genevieve; et al. 2024. Emerging outsource agricultural services enable farmer adaptation in agrifood value chains: A product cycle perspective. Food Policy 127(August 2024): 102711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102711

Country/Region

China; Myanmar; Ethiopia; France; Indonesia

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Eastern Africa; Europe; Eastern Asia; South-eastern Asia; Western Europe; Adaptation; Value Chains; Agrifood Systems; Farmers; Rice; Vegetables

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102711 Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Outsource agrifood service MSMEs facilitating pivoting by fruits & vegetables farmers, wholesalers, and retailers

2024Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Geneviève; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David
Details

Outsource agrifood service MSMEs facilitating pivoting by fruits & vegetables farmers, wholesalers, and retailers

There is an important gap in the literature regarding evidence about the emergence of outsource agrifood services. We contend that there are few studies on outsource services for differentiated product value chains, particularly in developing countries. To some extent, also, there is a knowledge gap regarding the use and effectiveness of eco-certification and labeling compliance-assisting services in developed countries. The bulk of attention on outsource services is centered at the commodity phase (such as with bulk grains) and the modern stage, and less attention is being paid to the product differentiation phase. To fill these voids, we focus on three country illustrations, ranging in the product cycle phases from transitional to transitional-modern to modern, and from early differentiating case in Ethiopia (on basic quality) to intermediate differentiating case in Indonesia (on advanced quality and variety differentiation in mangoes), to advanced-differentiating case in France (on eco-labeling and certification). We focus on horticulture as it is rapidly growing, and rapidly differentiating both in developed and developing countries. We conclude that policies and public investments facilitating the formation of these services are important. Importantly, we found that without these emerging outsource services, farmers would not have been able to be resilient to the shocks of market requirements and climate change.

Year published

2024

Authors

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Geneviève; Qanti, Sara; Swinnen, Johan; Vos, Rob; Zilberman, David

Citation

Reardon, Thomas; Awokuse, Titus; Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Minten, Bart; Nguyen, Geneviève; Qanti, Sara; et al. 2024. Outsource agrifood service MSMEs facilitating pivoting by fruits & vegetables farmers, wholesalers, and retailers. CGIAR Rethinking Food Markets Initiative Technical Paper January 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/137594

Country/Region

Ethiopia; France

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Western Europe; Agrifood Systems; Value Chains; Developing Countries; Horticulture

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Brief

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Brief

Intellectual property rights regimes, their assets, and limitations

2023Luwedde, Justine; Taylor, Peter; Koo, Jawoo; Chambers, Judith A.
Details

Intellectual property rights regimes, their assets, and limitations

The role of intellectual property has become increasingly important in protecting creations of the mind and making day-to-day business decisions. Hence, if innovations are left unprotected, they can be exploited by competitors with capacity to commercialize them. This policy brief points out that lowand middle-income countries face intellectual property-related challenges compared to high-income countries due to inadequate intellectual property awareness, the high cost of processing patent applications, weak enforcement of intellectual property rights, and weak research and development capacity. Group of Seven (G7) countries are thus better positioned, as high-income countries, to lead globally on intellectual property enforcement, and leverage the flexibilities within the trade related aspects of intellectual property to support and encourage future technologies in low- and middle-income countries. We propose that G7 countries support the creation of equity- and rights-based awareness on intellectual property rights, the improvement of mechanisms and systems for enforcement, and investment in research and development via building local support to reduce costs.

Year published

2023

Authors

Luwedde, Justine; Taylor, Peter; Koo, Jawoo; Chambers, Judith A.

Citation

Luwedde, Justine; Taylor, Peter; Koo, Jawoo; Chambers, Judith A. 2023. Intellectual property rights regimes, their assets, and limitations. Think7 Policy Brief April 2023. https://www.think7.org/publication/intellectual-property-rights-regimes-their-assets-and-limitations/

Country/Region

Canada; France; Germany; Italy; Japan; United States

Keywords

Northern America; Western Europe; Southern Europe; Eastern Asia; Copyright; Income; Intellectual Property Rights; Patents; Research

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Digital Innovation

Record type

Brief

Events

IFPRI @ Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit 2025
IFPRI at External Event

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March 27 to 28, 2025

IFPRI @ Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit 2025

IFPRI is pleased to participate in the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit 2025. The 2025 conference will be held in Paris, France and will focus on driving global action against malnutrition by bringing together stakeholders from various sectors to generate political and financial commitments to improve nutrition worldwide, with a particular focus on placing nutrition […]

Enhancing Biodiversity and Resilience in Intensive Farming Systems: Results from an ETH Zürich-IFPRI Collaborative study
Series/Special Event

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December 6, 2022, 10:00 – 11:30 am

Enhancing Biodiversity and Resilience in Intensive Farming Systems: Results from an ETH Zürich-IFPRI Collaborative study

Virtual Event: December 6, 2022 – 10:00 AM- 11:30 AM EST. This project, undertaken by ETH-Zurich and IFPRI and funded by Bayer, has consolidated and synthesized existing knowledge about farm and landscape practices designed to enhance biodiversity and resilience in intensive soybean, maize, and wheat production systems in Brazil, France, Germany, and the United States.

Meetings of Agricultural Chief Scientists of G20 States (MACS-G20)
IFPRI at External Event

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February 18 to 19, 2020

Meetings of Agricultural Chief Scientists of G20 States (MACS-G20)

IFPRI is participating in the annual “Meetings of Agricultural Chief Scientists of G20 States (MACS-G20)”, which have taken place since 2012, based on an initiative of the agricultural ministers of the G20 States to address central questions in fields of agriculture and nutrition which are too great to be solved with only national efforts, to better coordinate agricultural […]

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