IFPRI Insights: December 2020

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December 7, 2020

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New IFPRI Book “An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural
Mechanization Development: How Much Can Africa Learn from Asia?”
While agricultural mechanization in Asia has grown significantly in recent decades, mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara has been stymied by challenges in both the demand for it and supply of machines. The latest IFPRI book, edited by Xinshen Diao, Hiroyuki Takeshima, and Xiaobo Zhang, aims to boost these prospects by increasing the exchange of South-South knowledge on the adoption of tractors and other farm machinery. By analyzing thirteen case studies, the authors provide detailed comparisons of the two regions’ diverging mechanization journeys, and offer knowledge that will be crucial for policymakers and the development community alike. (Read the book)

Food for the City: Danielle Resnick and coauthors argue that informal food vendors are a crucial, integrated part of urban food systems in Africa south of the Sahara, yet policy does not treat them as such. (Read Article)

Water, Where? Through a new modeling system, Hua Xie, Liangzhi You, and colleagues find significant potential for investing in small-scale irrigation to extend crop production into the dry season in Ethiopia, which could help reduce food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also map the places with the highest small-scale irrigation investment opportunities! (Read Article)

Power and Perception: A survey by Katrina Kosec, Emily Schmidt and colleagues in Papua New Guinea finds that feelings of economic insecurity increase men and women’s support for girls’ education and women’s employment, but do not increase men’s support for women’s household agency. (Read Article)

Falling Short: An estimated 63-76% of India’s rural poor could not afford a recommended nutritious diet in 2011, says research by Kalyani Raghunathan, Derek Headey, and Anna Herforth. In order to improve nutrition, they recommend the full range of food groups, rather than just cereals, be made affordable for all. (Read Article)

Population Pressure: Kibrom Abay and colleagues find that land rental market participation rates and land rental prices increase with land scarcity in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania. It looks like the young farmers of the future will face increasing competition for agricultural land. (Read Article)

>> Read More Research

Weighing Up Child Malnutrition Figures
Because of inaccuracies in the methods used to calculate how many children suffer from acute malnutrition, the current global figure of 47 million children a year is likely an underestimate, according to Francisco Barba, Lieven Huybregts, and Jef Leroy. In their new blog, a helpful interactive highlights the difference between “prevalence” versus “burden”, which explains why acute malnutrition figures are undercounted. Taking this difference into account, the authors find that up to 295 million children might be a more accurate estimate for how many children experienced acute malnutrition in 2019. (Read Blog and Check Out The Interactive)

Smartphone Study: In a guest post for our COVID-19 series, Julius Adewopo, Gloria Solano Hermosilla, Fabio Micale and Liesbeth Colen report on the development of a crowdsourcing tool which collected almost real-time food price data during a 4-week pandemic lockdown in Nigeria, revealing threats to household food security. (Read Blog)

The Second Wave: Since mid-September, Myanmar has been facing another set of COVID-19 lockdowns. Derek Headey, Than Zaw Oo, Kristi Mahrt, Xinshen Diao, Sophie Goudet and Isabel Lambrecht find that these lockdowns have had disastrous impacts on poverty rates and nutrition. They go on to provide insights into how Myanmar’s government could address the issue. (Read Blog)

The Hidden Cost of Food: David Laborde, Marie Parent and Valeria Piñeiro’s blog discusses the true, social costs of food and proposes how the G20 could attempt to measure and address these costs in a globally harmonized effort share knowledge and reform policy. (Read Blog)

Climate Shocks and City Dwellers: Temporary migration patterns in Ethiopia and East Africa are changing due to climate change, with fewer people now leaving urban areas to look for seasonal work. Valerie Mueller and Francesca Edralin report, challenging the common narrative that temporary out-migration is a safety valve for climate extremes. (Read Blog)

Rights Without Empowerment: Though women’s land rights are often seen as a major goal for reducing gender inequality in agriculture, land ownership doesn’t always translate to empowerment for female farmers. Isabel Lambrecht and Timothy Karoff report on this disconnect in their blog about agricultural decision-making in northern Ghana. (Read Blog)

>> Read More Blogs

Podcast Episode #11: Poop from the Coop: Livestock Contamination and Nutrition in Burkina Faso
In the latest episode of Research Talks, IFPRI Research Fellow Derek Headey tells the story of how IFPRI researchers decided to probe the link between the presence of livestock feces in the home and childhood stunting. The research took them from Ethiopia to Burkina Faso, where they designed an intervention to test whether simple poultry value chain improvements, as well as water, sanitation, and hygiene education, could reduce contaminants and improve young children’s nutritional status. (Listen to the Episode)

In order to improve exports in Africa… different types of non-tariff measures have to be addressed in African countries and also in their trade partners…” – Chahir Zaki, Assistant Professor of Economics, Cairo University (Event)

Such global shocks offer a window of opportunity for major changes…” – Ashok Gulati, Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) (Event)

We cannot work in silos on the prevention of stunting versus the prevention of micronutrient deficiency versus the prevention of obesity.” – Victor Aguayo, Associate Director & Global Chief of Nutrition, Programme Division, UNICEF (Event)

We do not compete [in trade] for the sake of competing… we compete because it’s important for food security, for sustainability…” – Flavio Bettarello, Deputy Secretary for Trade and International Relations, Brazil Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply (MAPA) (Event)

[The] Food Security Portal connects different silos…to provide timely and effective information to turn it into meaningful action.” – Arif Husain Chief Economist, World Food Programme (WFP). (Event)