IFPRI Insights: December 2019

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December 9, 2019

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The Future Belongs to Youth
There is a huge demographic shift underway in Africa south of the Sahara, with tens of millions of young people reaching working age every year. James Thurlow and Valerie Mueller’s new book closes the knowledge gap and identifies country-level actions to make a youth-led economic transformation a reality. (Read Book)

A Life in Food Policy: Shenggen Fan reflects on his career, from growing up in rural China to working to advance global food policy research, and concludes that if researchers and policymakers truly want to transform food systems, working alone is no longer an option. (Read Article)

Double-Edged Sword: Phuong Nguyen, Rasmi Avula, Purnima Menon, and colleagues find that rising socioeconomic status in India has driven reductions in undernutrition–but also a worrying increase in overweight and obesity. (Read Article)

Mid-Sized Movement: In under a decade, medium-scale farms’ share of national crop output value has shot up in parts of Africa south of the Sahara, confirming these farms’ role as dynamic drivers of agricultural transformation, according to an analysis by Hosaena Ghebru and colleagues. (Read Article)

Transfers and Tips: Kate Ambler, Alan de Brauw, and Susan Godlonton experiment with what type of intervention boosts Senegalese farmers’ crop production and livestock ownership, finding farm management planning and cash transfers to have the most robust impacts. (Read Article)

Like Water for Social Justice: Water, food security, and nutrition can be improved by boosting water and land productivity and putting the interests of marginalized groups upfront, according to a groundbreaking book by Claudia Ringler and colleagues. (Read Book)

Two for the Price of One: Hiroyuki Takeshima, Hyacinth Edeh, and colleagues find that mechanized technologies such as tractors boost economies of scope (cost savings when producing related goods) between rice and non-rice crops, but lowers them among non-rice crops. (Read Article)

>> Read More Research

Up, Up, and Away!
Yields in developing countries, as measured by their value of output per hectare, are nearing those in developed countries; just one among many signs that rapid economic growth in developing countries is leading to convergence with high income countries and generating profound changes in all areas of agricultural economics, argues Will Martin. (Read Article)

Heated Choices: Volatility and risk impact the behavior of farmers in Zambia, prompting them to allocate their land to different crops, as Alex De Pinto shows in his analysis of the wide-reaching effects of climate change. (Read Blog)

Like There’s No Tomorrow: Kevin Chen, Mateusz Filipski, and Xiaobo Zhang find that people impacted by earthquakes in China saved less, drank more, and played more mahjong after the event, reflecting an inclination to enjoy life more. (Read Blog)

Flipping the Question: Instead of wondering what gender equality can do for agriculture, it is time to ask how agriculture can achieve gender equality. Evgeniya Anisimova reports on an event focusing on transformational change for both women and men. (Read Blog)

From Seed to Supermarket: Vivian Hoffmann travels along the value chain, identifying the food safety issues and research done at each stage and calling upon researchers to fill the knowledge gaps. (Read Blog)

Mainstreaming No Meat: Against the backdrop of an African swine fever outbreak, Shenggen Fan makes the case for alternative meat, including cultured and plant-based meat, for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions from livestock and improving human health. (Read Blog)

Protecting Against Harm: Amber Peterman, Shalini Roy, and Meghna Ranganathan wonder what kinds of economic programming are effective in preventing gender-based violence, as part of their report back from the Sexual Violence Research Initiative 2019 Forum. (Read Blog)

>> Read More Blogs

Fresh Looks
The websites for the Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP) and Malawi Strategy Support Program (MaSSP) have been revamped, bringing to even higher prominence the programs’ many online resources, including latest publications, datasets, news, and events.

The studies reveal numerous pockets of successes [in agricultural extension in Malawi], but these remain exceptions rather than rules. Huge challenges remain to replicate, scale, and accelerate these pockets of successes.”– Catherine Ragasa, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI (Event)

There is great potential in being able to mobilize the private sector [to fund the SDGs]. When we talk about an enabling environment, we’re talking about dimensions that come together to facilitate private-sector investment–we have decided to focus on the regulatory environment.” – Farbod Youssefi, Program Manager, World Bank Group (Event)

Food systems at the moment are challenged…to deliver nutritious food equitably within planetary boundaries…We are convinced that country-level approaches are needed.” – Inge Brouwer, Researcher and A4NH Flagship Leader of Food Systems for Healthier Diets (Event)

We have reasons to be optimistic. We have the knowledge and increasingly better data to commit to gender equality and… make informed decisions in future policy plans and programming to ensure women and men both benefit from agricultural growth.” – Ruth Meinzen-Dick, IFPRI Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI (Event) )