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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 Nature Conservancy, a non-governmental organization, is dedicated to protecting and conserving nature for people today and for future generations to come. The Nature Conservancy is a leader in conservation and is working to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Nature Conservancy seeks to address and correct unsustainable agricultural practices, while at the same time supporting improvements in soil health, habitat conservation and resource efficiency.

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Publications

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Working Paper

Options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and food systems

2025Vos, Rob; Martin, Will
Details

Options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and food systems

Food systems generate about one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Without reducing them, it will not be possible to stabilize the climate and keep the increase in global temperature below 1.5 oC from pre-industrial levels. About 50 percent of agricultural emissions (in CO2eq) come from methane, a super potent GHG, mostly from livestock production and rice cultivation. We consider six broad potential approaches to reducing emissions from agriculture—emission taxes; repurposing of farm support; regulations and conditionality; investing in green innovations; emission reduction credits, and demand-side interventions. We find that carbon taxes on most agricultural production emissions are likely much less effective than for emissions from combustion. Simple rearrangement or reduction of agricultural support will have only small impacts in terms of improving human and planetary health. By contrast, repurposing agricultural support towards R&D on sustainable agricultural intensification could generate major efficiency gains, sharply reduce emissions and improve food security. Regulatory approaches, including conditionality and payment for environmental services (PES) can be counterproductive if they lower yields and require expansion of agricultural land use. The potential benefits of emission reduction credits are greatly diminished by challenges in defining their baselines. Demand interventions designed to contribute both to environmental goals and improvements in health outcomes may also play a supporting role. Since multiple sustainable development goals are to be achieved, no single instrument by itself will be effective. Instead, multiple policy instruments will need to be bundled and targeted to create synergies and address trade-offs.

Year published

2025

Authors

Vos, Rob; Martin, Will

Citation

Vos, Rob; and Martin, Will. 2025. Options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and food systems. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2336. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Keywords

Climate Change Mitigation; Agriculture; Food Security; Agricultural Policies; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Sustainability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Understanding the policy landscape for climate action in Kenya: Potential for integration of gender, nutrition, and improved impact monitoring

2025Magalhaes, Marilia; Bryan, Elizabeth; Ringler, Claudia; Nyukuri, Elvin; Choudhury, Zahid ul Arifin
Details

Understanding the policy landscape for climate action in Kenya: Potential for integration of gender, nutrition, and improved impact monitoring

As in other low- and middle-income countries, more intense climate hazards and a warmer climate negatively impact agricultural production and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Kenya, as well as household diets, national food security and gender equality. Improving climate policy and investments to address these negative impacts requires suitable policy and investment structures that are, moreover, adequately networked among each other and with equity and nutrition efforts for effective climate action. This paper explores the institutional arrangements of the climate change policy landscape in Kenya by mapping governmental and non-governmental actors involved in climate action and how connected and influential they are. Data for this paper was collected through two participatory workshops, one at the national level and one at the county level, using the Net-Map approach. This approach provides novel insights into the highly complex climate policy landscape in Kenya. Although several climate policies and actions are in place in the country, workshop participants called for better coordination across climate change actors and stronger implementation capacity. The recent structural changes in the donor landscape might be an entry point for better alignment and coordination among different actor groups, and specifically among different government actor groups. A lack of operational monitoring and evaluation systems was also considered an important impediment to assess to what extent women and other vulnerable groups are benefitting from climate action in the country.

Year published

2025

Authors

Magalhaes, Marilia; Bryan, Elizabeth; Ringler, Claudia; Nyukuri, Elvin; Choudhury, Zahid ul Arifin

Citation

Magalhaes, Marilia; Bryan, Elizabeth; Ringler, Claudia; Nyukuri, Elvin; and Choudhury, Zahid ul Arifin. 2025. Understanding the policy landscape for climate action in Kenya: Potential for integration of gender, nutrition, and improved impact monitoring. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2335. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174475

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Climate Change; Gender; Nutrition; Stakeholders; Policies; Impact

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Parametric and machine learning approaches to examine yield differences between control and treatment considering outliers and statistical biases: The case of insect resistant/herbicide tolerant (IR/HT) maize in Honduras

2025Falck-Zepeda, José B.; Zambrano, Patricia; Sanders, Arie; Trabanino, Carlos Rogelio
Details

Parametric and machine learning approaches to examine yield differences between control and treatment considering outliers and statistical biases: The case of insect resistant/herbicide tolerant (IR/HT) maize in Honduras

Robust impact assessment methods need credible yield, costs, and other production performance parameter estimates. Sample data issues and the realities of producer heterogeneity and markets, including endogeneity, simultaneity, and outliers can affect such parameters. Methods have continued to evolve that may address data issues identified in the earlier literature examining genetically modified (GM) crops impacts especially those of conventional field level surveys. These methods may themselves have limitations, introduce trade-offs, and may not always be successful in addressing such issues. Experimental methods such as randomized control trials have been proposed to address several control treatment data issues, but these may not be suitable for every situation and issue and may be more expensive and complex than conventional field surveys. Furthermore, experimental methods may induce the unfortunate outcome of crowding-out impact assessors from low- and middle-income countries. The continued search for alternatives that help address conventional survey shortcomings remains critical. Previously, existing assessment methods were applied to the impact assessment of insect resistant and herbicide tolerant maize adoption in Honduras in 2008 and 2012. Results from assessments identified endogeneity issues such as self-selection and simultaneity concurrently with influential outliers. Procedures used to address these issues independently showed trade-offs between addressing endogeneity and outliers. Thus, the need to identify methods that address both issues simultaneously, minimizing as much as possible the impact of method trade-offs, continues. We structured this paper as follows. First, we review the literature to delineate data and assessment issues potentially affecting robust performance indicators such as yields and costs differentials. Second, we discuss and apply four types of approaches that can be used to obtain robust performance estimates for yield and cost differentials including: 1) Robust Instrumental Variables, 2) Instrumental Variable Regressions, and 3) Control/Treatment, and 4) Machine Learning methods that are amenable to robust strategies to deal with outliers including Random Forest and a Stacking regression approach that allows for a number of “base learners” in order to examine the pooled 2008 and 2012 Honduras field surveys. Third, we discuss implications for impact assessment results and implementation limitations especially in low- and middle-income countries. We further discuss and draw some conclusions regarding methodological issues for consideration by impact assessors and stakeholders.

Year published

2025

Authors

Falck-Zepeda, José B.; Zambrano, Patricia; Sanders, Arie; Trabanino, Carlos Rogelio

Citation

Falck-Zepeda, José B.; Zambrano, Patricia; Sanders, Arie; and Trabanino, Carlos Rogelio. 2025. Parametric and machine learning approaches to examine yield differences between control and treatment considering outliers and statistical biases: The case of insect resistant/herbicide tolerant (IR/HT) maize in Honduras. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2334. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174327

Country/Region

Honduras

Keywords

Latin America and the Caribbean; Central America; Maize; Yields; Impact Assessment; Agriculture; Data; Capacity Building; Machine Learning; Parametric Programming; Herbicide Resistance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Events

Virtual Event - COVID-19: The role of the agriculture-ecosystem health interface
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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August 18, 2020, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Virtual Event – COVID-19: The role of the agriculture-ecosystem health interface

Presenters discuss possible cross-sectoral policies and actions for enhancing human and ecosystem health, with a focus on the role of One CGIAR. WATCH VIDEO

Bigger Change Faster: Integrated Development, Health, and Environment Actions for a Sustainable Future
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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October 23, 2019, 12:15 – 1:45 pm

Bigger Change Faster: Integrated Development, Health, and Environment Actions for a Sustainable Future

From climate change to malnutrition, poverty to biodiversity loss, air pollution to humanitarian crises—the problems facing our world today are deeply interconnected. Holistic initiatives to address these challenges, notably the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are becoming more common. But efforts siloed within the development, health, or environment communities remain the norm. This seminar discusses the […]

Blogs

Earth Day 2023: Empowering local communities as stewards of Earth’s freshwater resources
IFPRI Blog
 | 
April 21, 2023

Earth Day 2023: Empowering local communities as stewards of Earth’s freshwater resources

By Wei Zhang and Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Advantages of Community-Based Conservation.

World Water Day 2021: How can we manage better what we value most?
IFPRI Blog
 | 
March 22, 2021

World Water Day 2021: How can we manage better what we value most?

By Claudia Ringler and Ruth Meinzen-Dick

What we really mean when we talk about water’s value.