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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

Kate Ambler

Kate Amber is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit. Kate’s research broadly focuses on interventions that can increase incomes for smallholders and other microenterprises in agrifood value chains, with a specific focus on the inclusion of women. This includes work on programming in fragile settings, innovations in agricultural finance, and regulatory solutions for food safety. 

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Innovation Policy and Scaling

Thomas Assefa

Associate Research Fellow

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Bio

Thomas Woldu Assefa is an Associate Research Fellow in the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. He is a development economist whose research interests include agricultural technology adoption, rural development, agricultural transformation, behavioral economics, agricultural extension and advisory services, food and nutrition security, and survey methods and measurements. Most of his research involves experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluation methods, and he has extensive experience in designing and implementing large-scale household surveys and randomized controlled trials. In his recent work, Thomas has focused on understanding smallholder farmers’ fertilizer adoption decisions and innovative methods to minimize measurement errors in development economics research.

Before joining IFPRI, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Georgia, as a consultant for the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and as an IMMANA postdoctoral research fellow in a program administered by Tufts University. Thomas received his MSc from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and holds a PhD from the University of Georgia, US.

Google Scholar Citations

Publications

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Journal Article

Fertilizer demand and profitability amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

2025Assefa, Thomas W.; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.
Details

Fertilizer demand and profitability amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

We assess fertilizer demand and profitability in Ethiopia in the face of the recent global fuel–food–fertilizer price crisis and other domestic shocks. We first examine farmers’ response to changes in both fertilizer and food prices by estimating price elasticity of demand. We then evaluate the profitability of fertilizer by computing average value–cost ratios (AVCRs) associated with fertilizer application before and after these crises. We use detailed longitudinal household survey data collected in three rounds, covering both pre-crisis (2016 and 2019) and post-crisis (2023) production periods, focusing on three main staple crops in Ethiopia (maize, teff, and wheat). Our analysis shows that fertilizer adoption, and yield levels were increasing until the recent crises, but these trends have been halted by these crises. We also find slightly larger fertilizer price elasticity of demand estimates than previous estimates, ranging between −0.40 and −1.12, which vary across crops. We find that farmers are more responsive to fertilizer prices than to output prices. Farmers’ response to increases in staple prices was statistically insignificant and hence not as strong as theoretically perceived. Households with smaller farm sizes are relatively more responsive to changes in fertilizer prices. Finally, we show important dynamics in the profitability of chemical fertilizer. While the AVCRs show profitable trends for most crops, the share of farmers with profitable AVCRs declined following the fertilizer price surges. Our findings offer important insights for policy focusing on mitigating the adverse effects of fertilizer price shocks.

Year published

2025

Authors

Assefa, Thomas W.; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.

Citation

Assefa, Thomas W.; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; and Abay, Kibrom A. 2025. Fertilizer demand and profitability amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia. Food Policy 133: 102785. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102785

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Fertilizers; Prices; Farmers; Household Surveys; Maize; Teff; Wheat; Yields

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102785 Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Journal Article

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Working Paper

Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

2024Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.
Details

Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

We revisit the state of smallholder fertilizer demand and profitability in Ethiopia in the face of the recent global fuel–food–fertilizer price crisis triggered by the Russian–Ukraine war and compounded by other domestic supply shocks. We first examine farmers’ response to changes in both fertilizer and food prices by estimating price elasticity of demand. We then revisit the profitability of fertilizer by computing average value–cost ratios (AVCRs) associated with fertilizer application before and after these crises. We use three-round detailed longitudinal household survey data, covering both pre-crisis (2016 and 2019) and post-crisis (2023) production periods, focusing on three main staple crops in Ethiopia (maize, teff, and wheat). Our analysis shows that fertilizer adoption, use, and yield levels were increasing until the recent crises, but these trends seem halted by these crises. We also find relatively large fertilizer price elasticity of demand estimates, ranging between 0.4 and 1.1, which vary across crops and are substantially larger than previous estimates. We find suggestive evidence that households with smaller farm sizes are relatively more responsive to changes in fertilizer prices. We also document that farmers’ response to increases in staple crop prices is not as strong as perceived and hence appears to be statistically insignificant. Finally, we show important dynamics in the profitability of chemical fertilizer. While the AVCRs show profitable trends for most crops, the share of farmers with profitable AVCRs declined following the fertilizer price surge. Our findings offer important insights for policy focusing on mitigating the adverse effects of fertilizer price shocks.

Year published

2024

Authors

Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.

Citation

Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; and Abay, Kibrom. 2024. 2024. Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2263. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148984

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Fertilizer Application; Smallholders; Household Surveys; Yield Response Factor; Shock

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

Ethiopia [In Agricultural Extension]

2020Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; Assefa, Thomas
Details

Ethiopia [In Agricultural Extension]

This chapter takes stock of the provision of extension services in line with the country’s development and suggests ways such services might contribute to accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction in the years ahead. Ethiopia has invested significantly in its extension system, in line with national policies that place a high priority on boosting agricultural production and productivity. Ethiopia is considered a leading country globally in the provision of extension services to farmers and has the highest extension agent-to-farmer ratio of any country. Ethiopia presents an interesting case, as it is one of few African countries to have placed agriculture at the forefront of its economic development policies, having invested heavily in the sector over the past two decades. Unlike many countries where private-sector extension services expanded following drastic public funding cuts to their extension systems in the 1980s and 1990s (Zhou and Babu 2015), Ethiopia’s extension system remains predominantly public.

Year published

2020

Authors

Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; Assefa, Thomas

Citation

Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; and Assefa, Thomas. 2020. Ethiopia. In Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries, eds. Kristin Davis; Suresh Chandra Babu; and Catherine Ragasa. Part 2: Performance of Extension Systems, Chapter 6, Pp. 185-223. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293755_06.

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Advisory Services; Agricultural Extension; Technology; Extension Systems; Livelihoods; Agricultural Development; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293755_06 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Book Chapter