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Who we are

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

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

Where we work

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Where we work

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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experts

Timothy Thomas

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Tim Thomas is a Senior Research Fellow in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit. His research focuses on the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity. This work has expanded recently to include evaluating the fuller impact of climate change by accounting for uncertainty and interannual variability, especially in regard to extreme events and low-productivity years. Tim’s work involves developing innovative methods for simulated climate futures; generating crop yield emulators to provide intuition and to speed simulations; and model coordination between climate, crop, water, energy, and economics. Tim has also worked in a variety of domains developing innovative methods such as spatial disaggregation (applied to gridded agricultural GDP in Brazil); determining optimal cropland level subnationally (for Ethiopia); and together with other researchers, investigating the impact of climate change on aflatoxins.

Publications

Publications

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Working Paper

Systematic risk profiling: A novel approach with applications to Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi

2024Mukashov, Askar; Robinson, Sherman; Thurlow, James; Arndt, Channing; Thomas, Timothy S.
Details

Systematic risk profiling: A novel approach with applications to Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi

This paper uses machine learning, simulation, and data mining methods to develop Systematic Risk Profiles of three developing economies: Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi. We focus on three exogenous shocks with implications for economic performance: world market prices, capital flows, and climate-driven sectoral productivity. In these and other developing countries, recent decades have been characterized by increased risks associated with all these factors, and there is a demand for instruments that can help to disentangle them. For each country, we utilize historical data to develop multi-variate distributions of shocks. We then sample from these distributions to obtain a series of shock vectors, which we label economic uncertainty scenarios. These scenarios are then entered into economywide computable general equilibrium (CGE) simulation models for the three countries, which allow us to quantify the impact of increased uncertainty on major economic indicators. Finally, we utilize importance metrics from the random forest machine learning algorithm and relative importance metrics from multiple linear regression models to quantify the importance of country-specific risk factors for country performance. We find that Malawi and Rwanda are more vulnerable to sectoral productivity shocks, and Kenya is more exposed to external risks. These findings suggest that a country’s level of development and integration into the global economy are key driving forces defining their risk profiles. The methodology of Systematic Risk Profiling can be applied to many other countries, delineating country-specific risks and vulnerabilities.

Year published

2024

Authors

Mukashov, Askar; Robinson, Sherman; Thurlow, James; Arndt, Channing; Thomas, Timothy S.

Citation

Mukashov, Askar; Robinson, Sherman; Thurlow, James; Arndt, Channing; and Thomas, Timothy S. 2024. Systematic risk profiling: A novel approach with applications to Kenya, Rwanda, and Malawi. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2286. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Kenya; Rwanda; Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Climate; Computable General Equilibrium Models; Machine Learning; Risk; Uncertainty

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

The Impact of climate change on agriculture

2024Thomas, Timothy S.
Details

The Impact of climate change on agriculture

Agriculture is an extremely important sector for Africa, providing a large contribution to GDP in most countries and, more importantly, representing a key source of employment in most of the continent—including 52 percent in Africa south of the Sahara in 2022 (International Labour Organization 2024)—while also serving as a bulwark against household food insecurity. Agriculture, however, is the sector most exposed to climate risk, and in years when climate conditions are not favorable, the resulting lower-than-normal agricultural production contributes to increases in food insecurity in almost every country on the continent.

Year published

2024

Authors

Thomas, Timothy S.

Citation

Thomas, Timothy S. 2024. The Impact of climate change on agriculture. In Advancing the climate and bioeconomy agenda in Africa for resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, eds. Getaw Tadesse, Katrin Glatzel, and Moumini Savadogo. Chapter 6, Pp. 64-77. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155084

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Agriculture; Climate Change; Models; Commodities

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Book Chapter

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Report

The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT): Model documentation for version 3.6

2024
Robinson, Sherman; Dunston, Shahnila; Mishra, Abhijeet; Sulser, Timothy B.; Mason-D’Croz, Daniel; Robertson, Richard D.; Cenacchi, Nicola; Thomas, Timothy S.; Zhu, Tingju; Gueneau, Arthur
…more Pitois, Gauthier; Wiebe, Keith D.; Rosegrant, Mark W.
Details

The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT): Model documentation for version 3.6

The International Food Policy Research Institute’s IMPACT model is a robust tool for analyzing global and regional challenges in food, agriculture, and natural resources. Continuously updated and refined, IMPACT version 3.6 is the latest update to the model for continuously improving the treatment of complex issues, including climate change, food security, and economic development. IMPACT 3.6 multimarket model integrates climate, crop simulation, and water models into a comprehensive system, providing decision-makers with a flexible platform to assess the potential impacts of various scenarios on biophysical systems, socioeconomic trends, technologies, and policies.

Year published

2024

Authors

Robinson, Sherman; Dunston, Shahnila; Mishra, Abhijeet; Sulser, Timothy B.; Mason-D’Croz, Daniel; Robertson, Richard D.; Cenacchi, Nicola; Thomas, Timothy S.; Zhu, Tingju; Gueneau, Arthur; Pitois, Gauthier; Wiebe, Keith D.; Rosegrant, Mark W.

Citation

Robinson, Sherman; Dunston, Shahnila; Mishra, Abhijeet; Sulser, Timothy B.; Mason-D’Croz, Daniel; Robertson, Richard D.; Cenacchi, Nicola; et al. 2024. The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT): Model documentation for version 3.6. Modeling Systems Technical Paper 1. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148953

Keywords

Agriculture; Commodities; Policy Analysis; Policy Innovation; Models

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Report

Blogs

For climate change, the American farmer is the sleeping giant
IFPRI Blog
 | 
September 07, 2017

For climate change, the American farmer is the sleeping giant

By Timothy Thomas

U.S. corn farmers have largely avoided rising temperatures during growing seasons. What happens when climate change kicks in?

Heat dome to do approximately $2 billion in damage to U.S. corn
IFPRI Blog
 | 
July 27, 2016

Heat dome to do approximately $2 billion in damage to U.S. corn

By Timothy Thomas

An IFPRI researcher's estimate shows just a few days of widespread high temperatures will end up harming U.S. corn yields

Do economic predictions of damage from climate change cause policymakers to focus on the wrong thing?
IFPRI Research Blog
 | 
December 01, 2015

Do economic predictions of damage from climate change cause policymakers to focus on the wrong thing?

By Timothy Thomas

Do economic predictions of damage from climate change cause policymakers to focus on the wrong thing?

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Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

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 […]

What does climate change mean for the future of agriculture? Insights from the IMPACT modeling system
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

May 15, 2024, 10:00 – 11:00 am

What does climate change mean for the future of agriculture? Insights from the IMPACT modeling system

Virtual Event: May 15, 2024 at 10:00am-11:00am EDT. This webinar, the first in the series, will focus on how IMPACT can be used to analyze how climate impacts on agrifood systems (and particularly crop productivity) may vary both across locations and over time in the coming decades, and how that can inform decisions about policies and investment today.

Beyond COVID-19: Strengthening Climate Resilience in Egypt’s Agricultural Sector
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

July 21, 2020, 2:00 – 3:00 pm

Beyond COVID-19: Strengthening Climate Resilience in Egypt’s Agricultural Sector

IFPRI’s Egypt Strategy Support Program (Egypt SSP) is organizing a seminar on research findings from an assessment of alternative adaptation options at the farm and policy levels. On-farm options include, among others, changing planting dates, improved seed technology, and alternative irrigation technologies, to name a few. Off-farm options include enhanced efficiency of farm input delivery and […]

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