IFPRI Insights: October 2019

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November 12, 2019

Tipping the Scales Toward Gender Equality
The ReSAKSS 2019 Annual Trends and Outlook Report, which focuses on achieving gender equality, was launched during the official opening of the ReSAKSS Annual Conference. Gender-sensitive policy and programming have an integral role to play in fostering inclusive agricultural growth in Africa. (Read Report) (Visit Conference Website)

Bi-directional Benefits: A report from BIFAD, APLU, and IFPRI makes the case that U.S. foreign agricultural aid benefits not only recipient countries, but also U.S. producers and consumers through exports, jobs, livestock disease control, and global stability. (Read Report)

Turning Down the Heat: Climate change is projected to reduce yields and production in Asia and the Pacific, but comprehensive investments in agricultural R&D, irrigation and water use, and rural infrastructure can effectively end hunger in the region by 2030, according to a report by Mark Rosegrant, Nicostrato Perez, Rowena Valmonte-Santos, and colleagues. (Read Article)

A,B,C’s of Nutrition: Aulo Gelli, Marco Santacroce, Harold Alderman, Marie Ruel, and colleagues find that a Malawi-based intervention that delivered nutrition behavior change communication at early childhood development centers increased preschoolers’ nutrient intakes and dietary diversity and reduced stunting among their younger siblings. (Read Article)

Who, What, Why: Tanguy Bernard, Melissa Hidrobo, and colleagues move beyond who makes household decisions and investigate why, finding that Senegalese households where decisions are driven by knowledge (rather than gender), have an advantage in agricultural production and nutrition indicators. (Read Article)

Buried Treasure: Adam Komarek, James Thurlow, Jawoo Koo, and Alessandro De Pinto find that adopting climate-smart agriculture on one-fourth of Ethiopia’s land under maize and wheat cultivation could increase annual GDP by $50 million, more effective than doubling fertilizer use on the same area. (Read Article)

Biodiversity Buzz: Wei Zhang and colleagues find that the richness and abundance of organisms like pollinators are key drivers of services that allow biodiversity to flourish, like pollination and pest control. (Read Article)

>> Read More Research

Edible, Yet Unattainable
Research by Kalle Hirvonen, Derek Headey, and colleagues shows that the universal diet recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission would cost USD $2.84 per day, exceeding the household per capita income of 1.58 billion people. The cost of fruits and vegetable make up the largest share (31%) of the total cost of the recommended diet. (Read Article) (Read Press Release) (View Full Infographic)

E-Transformation: Katrin Glatzel and Sheryl Hendriks explore the rapid rise of digital technologies, tools, and entrepreneurial services in Africa’s agriculture sector, with unbridled potential for transforming the region’s food systems. (Read Blog)

Modernizing Modeling: A new approach to modeling goes far beyond financial costs and benefits to account for environmental and social goals too, with real-life applications such as modeling the SDGs, as explained by Howard Mann. (Read Blog)

Drowning in Poverty: African households affected by flood shocks experience a 35% drop in food consumption and 17 percentage point increase in extreme poverty over 10 years, as Carlo Azzarri and Sara Signorelli show in their continent-wide analysis of climate and poverty. (Read Blog)

Field Notes: Emily Myers and Janet Hodur interview five IFPRI researchers, donors, and partners as they discuss results and share memorable field stories associated with their use of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. (Read Blog)

No Small Potatoes: FAO’s 2019 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report finds that 14% of the food produced globally is lost post-harvest, with roots, tubers, oilseeds, and produce being lost or wasted at particularly high rates, as Sara Gustafson explores. (Read Blog)

Exceptional Experiment: Shenggen Fan discusses the strides made by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, for their work on experiment-based development economics. (Read Blog)

>> Read More Blogs

Many Spotlights on Asia
The ReSAKSS Asia website has received a big makeover, showcasing the program’s latest research, news, and events. (Visit Website).

The IFPRI in Asia brochure profiles the Institute’s extensive, cutting-edge work across the region, along with its widespread impacts on nutrition, agricultural transformation, women, and more. (Read Brochure)

[Ghana cannot sustain its level of growth] because past growth has really come from expanding the area of land cultivation … into virgin lands [which are now] becoming exhausted.” – Shashidhara Kolavalli, Development Strategist (Event)

A quality-driven food system should be able to cope with disruptions and challenges in the agricultural sector.” (Event)

We need to think of a different approach which will not only focus on information and a vaguely defined notion of participation, but combine these concepts to see how they shape social capital and institutions.” – Leonard Wantchekon, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University (Event)

The challenges facing [our planet] are tightly interconnected across health, development, and the environment. Yet still, the reality is that most organizations…are still trying to solve problems on their own.” – Josh Goldstein, Bridge Collaborative Director (Event)

There is a tremendous prospect of a revolutionary growth in [the] food sector using water resources. We are driving the change, we’re preparing for more changes in our country through development.” – Abdul Mannan, Minister of Planning, Bangladesh (Event)

It’s not up to women to overcome gender issues [in extension systems], we need to restructure so that both men and women can participate in these systems.” – Cheryl Doss, Associate Professor and Senior Departmental Lecturer in Development Economics, Oxford University (Event)

“What was important in [the government of Malawi’s decision to scale up an agriculture-nutrition intervention] was translating evidence for policymakers. There was a need to have this highly technical data and information translated…in an opportunistic way… into what speaks most strongly to policymakers.” – Mary D’Alimonte, Senior Program Officer, Results for Development (R4D) (Event)