IFPRI Insights: February 2020

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February 10, 2020

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Like Music to Your Ears
IFPRI has launched a new podcast series! Research Talks takes listeners along the research journey, from the ups and downs of implementing cutting-edge research in remote settings, to working with partners to help the research make an impact. Tune in for personal stories of successes, funny mishaps, and unforeseen challenges. (Listen Here)

For the Long Haul: Xinshen Diao, Margaret McMillan, and colleagues analyze data on small businesses in Tanzania, finding that most are in retail trade or manufacturing and that half of small business owners say they wouldn’t leave their job for a full-time salaried position. (Read Article)

Integrated Program for Impact: A food-assisted maternal and child health and nutrition program in Burundi increased food security and key indicators of nutrition, including micronutrient consumption, according to an evaluation by Jef Leroy, Deanna Olney, Lilia Bliznashka, and Marie Ruel. (Read Article)

Good Cooking: Jowel Choufani and colleagues evaluate an intervention which employed Palestinian refugee women in healthy kitchens, finding that it increased their household’s expenditures on food and clothing. (Read Article)

Pay a Premium?: Farmers living in Nepal’s Hill region are willing to pay more for fertilizer than their counterparts in the lowland region, but the amount is still less than market price, according to experimental auctions run by Patrick Ward, Shweta Gupta, Vartika Singh, and colleagues. (Read Article)

Drive for Data: Francisco Ceballos, Berber Kramer, and colleagues find that the use of certain datasets to model weather-yield relationships in India creates large uncertainties in estimating crop yields, highlighting the need for high-quality data. (Read Article)

>> Read More Research

Tricky Tradeoffs
Projections show that increased investments in agricultural R&D could boost India’s crop production while creating a substantial carbon sink–pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere–from agricultural land management practices. But, projections also show these investments can create trade-offs, like reductions in biodiversity. To minimize such trade-offs, investments in agricultural production should be joined with specific measures to support other Sustainable Development Goals. (Read Article)

It’s All Political: Stuart Gillespie calls for focusing on the political and commercial drivers of the double burden of malnutrition, which together with inequity, are at the root of food system dysfunctionality. (Read Blog)

But Who Is Listening?: Country policymakers are calling for greater investments in building capacity for transforming food systems. Suresh Babu wonders whether the development community will heed this call for action. (Read Blog)

Fast Track to the Future: Sara Gustafson introduces the new Global Foresight for Food and Agriculture tool, a flexible way of exploring the impact of agricultural investment scenarios on agricultural production, productivity, and hunger for 2010-2050. (Read Blog)

Subsumed by Subsidies: As India finds itself increasingly burdened by agricultural subsidies, Rebika Laishram and Anjani Kumar detail the policy debate surrounding the best way to support Indian farmers, whether through direct benefit transfers or in-kind transfers. (Read Blog)

Getting Gender Right: Women and men may have different climate risks and experiences, as well as different capacities and preferences for how they respond to climate shocks, as Elizabeth Bryan explores. (Read Blog)

From the Ground Up: Wei Zhang illuminates the role of women’s empowerment in soil health, putting forth several recommendations for integrating gender into soil health research and initiatives. (Read Blog)

>> Read More Blogs

Trade plays an essential role in achieving global food security, fighting malnutrition, diversifying food supplies, and compensating food supply deficits.” – Friedrich Wacker, Director General, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Germany (Event)

There’s a lot of food data out there but a lot of it is just for a handful of high income countries. We wanted to create an equitable dashboard that displays data from low to high income countries.” – Jessica Fanzo, Professor and Director, Johns Hopkins Global Food Ethics and Policy Program, Johns Hopkins University (Event)

Investments in improving nutrition in the first 1000 days should be considered as long-term economic investments because they improve human capital and productivity.” – Reynaldo Martorell, Professor, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University (Event)

It is crucial that governments in Africa devise policies that meet the long term needs of its youth as opposed to catering to their short term political interest.” – James Thurlow, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI (Event)

We are in the process of transforming the Indian economy. So Indian agriculture must also transform.” – PK Joshi, President, Agricultural Economics Research Association (Event)