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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Carlo Azzarri

Carlo Azzarri is a Senior Research Fellow in the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. His work focuses on the relationships among poverty, nutrition, food security, agriculture, the environment, production, and migration—analyzed at both micro and macroeconomic levels, primarily using quantitative methods.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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The mandate of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is to ensure food security in crop, livestock and fisheries, stimulate agricultural employment and services, promote the production and supply of raw materials to agro industries, provide markets for the products of the industrial sector, generate foreign exchange and aid rural socio-economic development. It works to organize and manage the agriculture sector and facilitate agribusiness for increased food security and employment along commodity value chains and agro-industrial development to earn foreign exchange and contribute to socio-economic development of the country.

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Publications

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Working Paper

Impact of risk-contingent credit and traditional credit on smallholders’ agricultural investment and productivity: Experimental evidence from Kenya

2024Ndegwa, Michael K.; Shee, Apurba; Ward, Patrick S.; Liu, Yanyan; Turvey, Calum G.; You, Liangzhi
Details

Impact of risk-contingent credit and traditional credit on smallholders’ agricultural investment and productivity: Experimental evidence from Kenya

We use a multiyear, multi-arm randomized controlled trial implemented among 1,053 smallholders in Kenya to evaluate ex-ante investment and ex-post productivity and welfare benefits of two competing lending models: risk-contingent credit (RCC)—which embeds crop insurance with a loan product—and traditional credit (TC). We rely on local average treatment effects to demonstrate the effects of these alternative credit products on borrowers but report the intention-to-treat effects for their broader policy significance. Uptake of RCC increased treated households’ farm investments—specifically, adoption of chemical fertilizers—by up to 14 percent along the extensive margins and by more than 100 percent along the intensive margins, while TC’s effects were less in both magnitude and statistical significance. Neither type of credit product had a significant effect on the overall area cultivated under maize, hence enhancing agricultural intensification but not extensification. Ex-post, neither type of credit product had a strong direct effect on households’ productivity. We conclude that access to credit has potential to increase investment and productivity among smallholders, although improved productivity needs better measurement and extended intervention to be realized. To scale the potential effects of credit, derisking access to credit should be considered to expand access to credit.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ndegwa, Michael K.; Shee, Apurba; Ward, Patrick S.; Liu, Yanyan; Turvey, Calum G.; You, Liangzhi

Citation

Ndegwa, Michael K.; Shee, Apurba; Ward, Patrick S.; Liu, Yanyan; Turvey, Calum G.; and You, Liangzhi. 2024. Impact of risk-contingent credit and traditional credit on smallholders’ agricultural investment and productivity: Experimental evidence from Kenya. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2303. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/163758

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Credit; Productivity; Investment; Smallholders; Welfare; Risk

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Climate Resilience

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

Fruit and vegetable value chains in Africa

2024Aboushady, Nora; Kornher, Lukas; Zaki, Chahir
Details

Fruit and vegetable value chains in Africa

The patterns of Africa’s participation in fruit and vegetable value chains (FVVCs) clearly reflect the continent’s colonial past. The restructuring of African exports around a few commodities to serve European markets during the colonial period largely undermined the farming of local food crops, including indigenous fruits and vegetables. Postcolonial governments focused on cash crops as the main source of foreign exchange earnings, reinforcing the status quo. However, the mid-1980s witnessed a major shift in global demand away from traditional cash crops and toward high-value products, including fruits and vegetables. This shift was an opportunity for developing countries, including those in Africa, to diversify their exports and reduce their vulnerability to global commodity price fluctuations. Participation in FVVCs can also have positive impacts on employment creation, income mobility, and poverty reduction. Yet, Africa’s participation in FVVCs is undermined by a number of structural challenges, some of which are typical of FVVCs, and some related to long-standing issues facing African economies in general, and the agriculture sector in particular.

Year published

2024

Authors

Aboushady, Nora; Kornher, Lukas; Zaki, Chahir

Citation

Aboushady, Nora; Kornher, Lukas; and Zaki, Chahir. 2024. Fruit and vegetable value chains in Africa. In Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2024, Odjo, Sunday; Traoré, Fousseini; and Zaki, Chahir, eds. Chapter 4. Kigali and Washington, DC: AKADEMIYA2063 and International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/151913

Keywords

Africa; Fruits; Vegetables; Value Chains; Exports; Employment; Poverty; Agricultural Production

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Book Chapter

Impact of climate change on trade in Africa

2024Mamboundou, Pierre; Traoré, Fousseini; Zaki, Chahir
Details

Impact of climate change on trade in Africa

The literature on the complex relationship between trade and climate change is rich. While trade can affect climate change through dirty production techniques or carbon emissions due to transport (Brenton and Chemutai 2021), climate change can affect trade through its effect on agricultural productivity (Ben Zaied and Cheikh 2015; Chandio et al. 2020), production, and thus countries’ specialization (Gouel and Laborde 2021), primarily due to high temperatures and water stress (Hamududu and Ngoma 2020). As Africa is a net importer of agricultural products, the consequence is that climate change will likely affect food security in the medium and long term. Against this background, the objective of this chapter is twofold. First, we examine the extent to which African countries are exposed to climate change relative to other regions of the world. Second, we show how Africa’s comparative advantages can be altered with rising temperatures and water stress. Our main findings show that climate change effects in Africa are more pronounced than in other regions, reflected in the increase in extreme weather events associated with rising temperatures and greater variability in precipitation. These developments are likely to increase the number of food insecure people. Furthermore, we identify how climate change can affect African countries’ specialization based on products’ sensitivity to changes in temperature and their dependence on water. We show that several crops (such as leguminous vegetables, edible nuts and coconuts, groundnuts, oilseeds, and oleaginous fruits) will be affected by climate change. Other crops’ production may be less affected, but their future expansion may be limited by climate change–related factors.

Year published

2024

Authors

Mamboundou, Pierre; Traoré, Fousseini; Zaki, Chahir

Citation

Mamboundou, Pierre; Traoré, Fousseini; and Zaki, Chahir. 2024. Impact of climate change on trade in Africa. In Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2024, Odjo, Sunday; Traoré, Fousseini; and Zaki, Chahir, eds. Chapter 5. Kigali and Washington, DC: AKADEMIYA2063 and International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/151906

Keywords

Africa; Trade; Climate Change; Agricultural Productivity; Food Security; Water Scarcity; Extreme Weather Events

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

Events

UNFSS Science Days Side Event: COVID-19, food systems, and One Health in an urbanizing world: Research responses at a national level
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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July 6, 2021, 9:30 – 11:00 am

UNFSS Science Days Side Event: COVID-19, food systems, and One Health in an urbanizing world: Research responses at a national level

Virtual Event: July 6, 2021- 09:30 AM to 11:00 AM EDT. This event will highlight how technologies and policies in the agri-food sector can help improve food and nutrition security for the world's growing urban populations.