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2022 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor (AATM): Data and monitoring of Africa’s agricultural trade capacity and policy are increasingly important as global volatility in agriculture and fertilizer markets is increasing risks for many importing and exporting countries.
At a September 27th policy seminar, IFPRI and AKADEMIYA2063 launched the 2022 edition of the Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor (AATM). This flagship report analyzes short- and long-term trends and drivers of African agricultural trade flows, including regional policies and the role of global markets. Chapters in this year’s report examine the impact of recent shocks, the potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to contribute to growth, the development of value chains for processed products and for coffee, tea, and cocoa, as well as the role of intraregional trade in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and makes recommendations for promoting the development of African trade. (Read Report)
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Artificial Intelligence: Phuong Hong Nguyen and colleagues assessed the dietary intake of girls aged 12–18 years in Viet Nam using three methods: FRANI (a mobile artificial intelligence (AI) application using photo recognition), weighed records (the gold standard), and multiple-pass 24-hour recall (participants describing everything they consumed the previous day). By comparing the results, they fill an important evidence gap on the relative validity of using innovative AI-based mobile technology to assess the diets of adolescent females in low- and middle-income countries. (Read Article)
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From Phone to Fish: ICT is used widely for aquaculture advice in Ghana and contributes to improved management practices, farm productivity, and farmers’ income, finds a study by Prosper Ntiri, Catherine Ragasa, and colleagues. Of the ICT tools used, TV and radio are currently underutilized and can be further expanded for aquaculture advice. (Read Article)
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Credit Constraints: Agricultural credit constraints are generally associated with supply-side factors, but new research with smallholders in Ethiopia and Tanzania reveals that demand-side factors, such as risk-aversion behavior, are just as important. The study by Bedru Balana and colleagues also suggests that women smallholders are more likely than men to be credit constrained, from both the supply and demand sides. (Read Article)
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Game Point: Research by Wei Zhang and colleagues sheds light on how gender balance may influence aspects of community-based natural resource management—an approach which is often dominated by men. The study, which took place in rural Kenya, used games to assess relevant behaviors: mixed gender groups achieved more socially optimal outcomes in public goods games, while male-only groups conserved the most resources in extraction games. (Read Article)
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No Silver Bullet: Technology can enable community health and nutrition workers in India to improve services delivery to pregnant women and mothers of infants—but only to a limited extent—finds new research. Digital health interventions cannot substitute for efforts that strengthen health systems and address structural barriers, argue Rasmi Avula and colleagues. ( Read Article)
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Promising Interventions: Evidence from rural Bangladesh suggests that providing community health workers with an electronic job aid (an android application providing images, discussion prompts, visit schedules, and more) to assist with breastfeeding counselling and practical demonstration are promising interventions to improve exclusive breastfeeding. These interventions are also scalable into existing community-based programs, write Stuart Gillespie and colleagues. ( Read Article)
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No End in Sight Yet for the Global Food Price Crisis: Since May, international prices of wheat and other staple foods have returned to the levels they were at prior to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. But the global food crisis is not over yet, warn IFPRI researchers in a recent blog post.
Threats to food security remain acute in many countries. As the recent update of the Global Report on Food Crises points out, countries that were already facing protracted food crises before COVID and the Russia-Ukraine war have been among the hardest hit by recent problems. Populations in all 45 countries and territories already in food crisis before the war started saw the cost of a basic food basket increase by at least 10% by April–June 2022 (above the five-year average cost for that period). People in Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Yemen, Sierra Leone, Haiti, and Honduras faced a food cost increase of over 75%. ( Read Blog)
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Modeling Energy Solutions: Dawit Mekonnen and Hua Xie present results from Ethiopia’s first national-scale irrigation-energy planning analysis, which used modeling to assess the development potential of three forms of energy solutions for groundwater irrigation in Ethiopia: grid-connected electricity, off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV), and diesel energy. (Read Blog)
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Hitting a Roadblock: To promote digital financial inclusion in the Somali region of Ethiopia, SHARPE, Shabelle Bank, and IFPRI are trying to expand the reach of the HelloCash mobile money service in refugee-hosting areas. While the outreach has been successful in generating new clients for HelloCash, getting people who enrolled to follow through and use the service remains a challenge. Alan de Brauw and Shalini Roy explain how researchers are approaching the dilemma. (Read Blog)
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Transforming Food Systems in South Asia: At a launch event for IFPRI’s 2022 Global Food Policy Report in Kathmandu, Nepal, speakers explored the potential for more effective policies and programs focused on climate impacts and food systems in South Asia. Rebika Laishram shares highlights from the event in a recent blog post. (Read Blog)
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Tackling Emissions: CGIAR’s Mitigate+ research initiative focuses on the single largest global challenge: Climate change. As part of its mission, the Mitigate+ team will work to create an enabling environment for scaling up and out at least five CGIAR food systems technologies and innovations with the highest potential to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. (Read Blog)
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Migration Matrix: People migrate as a matter of individual choice, but such decisions occur in complex contexts, often beyond the control of specific actors. The IFPRI-led Gender-Sensitive Risks and Options Assessment for Decision Making (ROAD) project implemented participatory net-map workshops in Bangladesh, Nepal, Jordan, and Lebanon to understand which ties bind and potentially worsen the vulnerability of women migrants in the South to West Asian corridor. Zahid ul Arefin Choudhury discusses the results. (Read Blog)
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IFPRI Appointment of New Senior Directors: As part of a reorganization of IFPRI’s structure to match that of the CGIAR Systems Transformation group, IFPRI has appointed two new Senior Directors. Purnima Menon was named the Senior Director for Food and Nutrition Policy and Channing Arndt was named Senior Director for Systems Transformation Strategies. (More Details)
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 The markets and trade part remains, from where I am sitting, the number one challenge this continent [Africa] has to address, but also the number one opportunity.” – Agnes Kalibata, President, AGRA. (Event)
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It is very important that there’s a speedy mobilization of financial resources to address this humanitarian crisis, particularly in the low- and middle-income countries, so this should be the top priority for the G20.” – Damayanti Buchori, Lead Co-chair, Task Force Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture T20. (Event)
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Live from the UN General Assembly: Food Security in Focus | The Global Refugee Crisis (UNGA Day 2): UN Dispatch published an article about the UN General Assembly meeting where the key focus was food security and food access. IFPRI’s Rob Vos discussed the speeches and comments made at the opening session, “There was a very strong call and spirit of doing things together. Call for more multilateralism, which we haven’t heard in a long time, particularly from some of the key players on this stage, but also a sense of urgency. And I think that’s maybe the most important thing.”
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Africa Must Remove Barriers to Cross-Border Trade to Target Food Insecurity, Warns IFPRI: IFPRI’s David Laborde was quoted in an African Business article about how continental self-sufficiency may not be an appropriate remedy for Africa’s weak position in agricultural supply chains, “The greatest problem facing African farmers is not that they are too connected to global supply chains, but that their connections to those supply chains are not developed enough.”
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Rob Vos Discusses the World Food Crisis, Free Markets, and Food Prices: CGTN published a video in which panelists discuss rising food prices, the potential global hunger crisis, and how top US grain giants have reportedly reaped record profits. IFPRI’s Rob Vos states, “The big A, B, C, D companies (Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, and Cargill, the Louis-Dreyfus Group) command a lot of the grains trade in the world…It would be far-fetched to say they’re to blame for the food crisis, but we can say there is an inequity problem—while they’re making profits, others are suffering.”
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