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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.

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Agnes Quisumbing

Agnes Quisumbing is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. She co-leads a research program that examines how closing the gap between men’s and women’s ownership and control of assets may lead to better development outcomes.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Razin Kabir

Senior Program Manager

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Razin Iqbal

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Bio

Razin Kabir is a Senior Program Manager in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interests include agricultural value chain performance and food and nutrition security issues. His ongoing work includes investigating the impact of cluster farming initiatives on productivity and livelihoods for shrimp farmers, as well as providing policy insights on large-scale mechanization subsidy programs in Bangladesh. At IFPRI, Razin has previously worked on studies examining the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on value chains, estimating private sector rice stocks via a nationally representative survey of the value chain, establishing loss estimates for public food-grain storage, and assessing the impacts of public sector price stabilization policies.

Currently, Razin is the country coordinator for the CGIAR Research Initiative on Rethinking Food Markets, as well as the deputy chief of party for the USAID-funded Feed the Future Bangladesh Research Activity. He joined IFPRI in December 2016 as part of the Integrated Food Policy Research Program (IFPRP). Before joining IFPRI, Razin worked as a senior research associate at the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health. He received both his master’s degree in international public health and bachelor’s degree in medical science (Immunobiology) from the University of Sydney, Australia.

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Publications

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Working Paper

Assessing the impact of rice price stabilization policies in Bangladesh: Results from a stochastic spatial equilibrium model

2024Minot, Nicholas; Hossain, Shahadat; Kabir, Razin; Dorosh, Paul A.; Rashid, Shahidur
Details

Assessing the impact of rice price stabilization policies in Bangladesh: Results from a stochastic spatial equilibrium model

Rice plays a central role in the diet in Bangladesh and as a source of income for farmers. Although Bangladesh has largely liberalized international trade in rice, it maintains a public food distribution system to stablize prices, distributing an average of 2 million tons of rice per year at a cost of almost US$ 800 million per year. This study explores whether alternative policies could achieve similar stabilization at a lower cost. It uses a stochastic spatial-equilibrium model of rice markets to simulate monthly prices in eight regions of the country. Stochastic shocks are used to simulate fluctuations in regional production, replicating historical patterns at the region-season level, as well as inter-regional correlation in production shocks. It also simulates fluctuation in world rice prices, mimicking the mean, variance, and serial correlation of historical wholesale prices of rice in Delhi. Public procurement and distribution follow historic averages by month and region. Private storage is represented by a simplified version of rational expectations models, in which net storage is a non-linear function of availability in the previous month. One set of simulations tests alternative levels of distribution, finding that cutting distribution to 1 million tons would have minimal effects on the level of rice price stability. Another set of simulations tested different import tariff levels, including the baseline rate of 25%1. We find that lower tariffs result in both lower rice prices and less price instability, as world rice prices tend to be more stable than local prices. Simulating a buffer stock with different price bands shows that a narrow band can achieve high price stability but at a high fiscal cost. A 20 T/kg (USD 0.26/kg) price band generates similar price stabilization at a lower cost compared to current policy. However, it is difficult to set the “right” purchase and sale price, and many simulations result in exhausting reserves or reaching warehouse capacity. An adaptive buffer stock, in which the price is adjusted as the stock runs too low or too high, solves some of these problems. In general, the study finds that current procurement and distribution patterns do not match well with the regional and monthly patterns of surplus and deficit, possibly reflecting multiple and conflicting goals of the public food distribution system.

Year published

2024

Authors

Minot, Nicholas; Hossain, Shahadat; Kabir, Razin; Dorosh, Paul A.; Rashid, Shahidur

Citation

Minot, Nicholas; Hossain, Shahadat; Kabir, Razin; Dorosh, Paul A.; and Rashid, Shahidur. 2024. Assessing the impact of rice price stabilization policies in Bangladesh: Results from a stochastic spatial equilibrium model. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2252. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141799

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Equilibrium; Price Stabilization; Stochastic Models; Rice; Tariffs

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19

2023Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; Rashid, Shahidur
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Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19

There is little systematic evidence on the resilience of South Asian agri‐food value chains since the onset of Covid‐19. Using two rounds of surveys of 1751 fish and shrimp value chain actors in Bangladesh, this paper undertakes two sets of tasks: (a) analyzes business continuity (closures and resumptions) and its implications for household food security, and (b) adapts a ten‐item measure of subjective resilience and examines its predictors: diversity, scope, scale, vertical integration, and cluster effects. Results show that recent closures are linked to Covid‐19, suggesting that firms were only able to sustain operations for a period of 8–9 months before folding due to cumulative stresses; and that the degree of resilience varies significantly across value chains and the segments within them. Interestingly, contrary to established stylized facts, clusters appear to be negatively correlated with resilience, indicating that cooperation among value chain actors within a cluster breaks down under large‐scale covariate shocks. The implications of these and other key findings are discussed.

Year published

2023

Authors

Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; Rashid, Shahidur

Citation

Kabir, Razin; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; and Rashid, Shahidur. Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 45(4): 1835-1862. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13356

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Value Chains; Stress; Shrimp Culture; Coronavirus; Covid-19; Households; Enterprises; Coronavirinae; Agrifood Systems; Fish; Food Security; Coronavirus Disease; Shocks; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13356 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Shrimp value chains in Bangladesh: A scoping study of possible research interventions

2023Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Hernandez, Ricardo; Haque, Mohammad Mahfujul
Details

Shrimp value chains in Bangladesh: A scoping study of possible research interventions

Shrimp is Bangladesh’s main agricultural export and makes a substantial contribution to the economy of southern Bangladesh, but the sector has a checkered history. Bangladesh’s shrimp production and exports have been in steady decline, since peaking in the early 2010’s. Most shrimp exports from Bangladesh are used by the food service and niche ethnic markets in Europe. The complex nature of shrimp supply chains in Bangladesh, comprised of hundreds of thousands of small polyculture farms and tens of thousands of small traders, make it difficult to implement tracea bility and certification initiatives – now a prerequisite for entry into most supermarket supply chains. This report provides an overview of the sector and the challenges it faces, drawing on secondary and survey data, reviews of government reports and academic literature. We also report the findings of an expert consultation conducted to identify key constraints and potential solutions. The consensus among industry stakeholders who were part of the expert consultations is that issues related to the supply and quality of shrimp seed and pond management practices represent some of the most pressing, yet relatively simple-to-solve challenges currently faced by the sector. This would serve as the foundation for establishing traceability and certification processes. Previous interventions aimed at upgrading production practices (such as promoting stocking of disease-free shrimp seed) and facilitating disintermediation and transparency in the supply chain (such as by establishing producer groups, shrimp collection centers, and contracts with processors), have met with limited success. We outline potential interventions and partners that might offer scalable solutions enabling small shrimp farmers to access global markets.

Year published

2023

Authors

Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Hernandez, Ricardo; Haque, Mohammad Mahfujul

Citation

Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Hernandez, Ricardo; and Haque, Mohammad Mahfujul. 2023. Shrimp value chains in Bangladesh: A scoping study of possible research interventions. Rethinking Food Markets Initiative Note 8. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136869

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Shrimp; Agriculture; Exports; Supply Chains; Standardization; Quality; Production; Small Enterprises; Shrimp Culture

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136869 Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Brief

Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

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August 2 to 7, 2024

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists

The triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), centred on the theme “Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems” is scheduled from August 2-7, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The conference offers a distinctive platform, providing a golden opportunity for the agricultural academic institutions and researchers to convene in person, exchange knowledge, and actively contribute to the […]