IFPRI Publications: Briefs

Integrating agrifood system strategies with climate change policies and commitments in Tajikistan

The Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action endorsed by over 150 countries at UNFCCC-COP28 highlights global recognition of the unprecedented adverse climate impacts on food systems resilience and the need to expedite the integration of agriculture and food systems into climate action. While integration is necessary to ensure favorable sectoral level climate action outcomes, there are currently no concrete frameworks and case studies showcasing how to support this integration process at the country level. A recent study focused on Tajikistan uses a conceptual framework to undertake such an integration analysis of key national level climate change related and agriculture policy documents. It identifies synergies and existing gaps and provides recommendations on strengthening sectoral integration to achieve climate change goals. This study was funded by the USAID mission in Tajikistan and USAID’s Comprehensive Action for Climate Change Initiative (CACCI)-Asia under their support to the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) of Tajikistan toward the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) through technical support from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

CACCI country profile Nepal

Nepal is a mountainous, landlocked, and low-middle-income country in the South Asian region. Agriculture is the principal occupation housing 69% of the labor force, followed by tourism. Nepal witnesses frequent soil erosion, landslides, flash floods, and droughts with lasting impacts on most livelihoods. A recent Asian Development Bank study estimates that before 2050, the country will lose 2.2 percent of its yearly GDP to climate change. Energy, agriculture, water resources, forestry, biodiversity, and the health sector are at high risk due to the negative impact of climate change. The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) 2021 – 2050 is the guiding document along with the Second and the Third National Communication to the UNFCCC. The Second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) (Jan 2021 – Dec 2030) outlines the sectoral activity-based and policy targets and reduction in emissions in select sectors, all conditional on international support.

Building pathways out of poverty in Baidoa, Somalia: Qualitative evidence around resilience in the context of flood shocks

Somalia is among the most impoverished nations globally, grappling with severe poverty, persistent armed conflicts, and recurrent droughts and floods, leading to a humanitarian crisis marked by substantial internal displacement. The site of this evaluation, Baidoa, has 517 sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs), housing nearly 600,000 households. Notably, 64% of the residents in these sites are women and girls. The 2nd Somali High-Frequency Survey revealed that poverty is particularly pronounced in IDP settlements, compounded by high unemployment rates and a lack of income-generating opportunities, thereby exacerbating the challenging circumstances in this area. This brief reports findings from a qualitative assessment conducted in January 2024 exploring the effects of severe floods in Baidoa and the role of the Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) intervention in protecting households from these shocks.

Should Sri Lanka attempt to achieve self-sufficiency in pulses?

Agriculture is the mainstay of Sri Lanka’s rural economy and employs about 26.5 percent of the country’s total employed population, rural and urban (Department of Census and Statistics [DCS] 2023a). Paddy occupies the largest portion of cropland; tea, rubber, coconut, spices, fruits, vegetables, pulses, and other cereals occupy the rest (Thibbotuwawa 2021; Senanayake and Premaratne 2016; Adhikari nayake 2005). Nonetheless, food and nutrition security remain a major challenge: nearly 3.9 million people, or 17 percent of Sri Lankans, experience moderately acute food insecurity; nearly 10,000 are severely acute food insecure; and 56 percent of households have adopted food-based coping strategies, including reducing meal portion sizes (36 percent) and skipping meals (19 percent) (FAO 2023a). Moreover, the prevalence of underweight in women and anaemia in adolescent girls and women is high in South Asia (UNICEF 2023), and micronutrient (iron, zinc, and/or folate) deficiencies are also highest there (72 percent).

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: January 2024

This bulletin presents food price trends during the fourth quarter of 2023 and compares current prices with those of previous years (2021-2022) from major markets across Papua New Guinea using data collected by Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPD). It is important to note that during the fourth quarter of 2023, none of the markets had a complete set of fortnightly price data. While Port Moresby had fortnightly observations for October and December, the rest of the markets (Goroka, Banz Kokopo, Lae) collected price data on a monthly basis. No data was collected in the 4th quarter from Mt Hagen market. To access the complete and comprehensive price dataset, you can download it from our website. This bulletin reports the average real monthly fresh food price data from Port Moresby, Goroka, Banz, and Kokopo markets. The prices presented in this report are in real terms, adjusted for inflation using FAO consumer price index (CPI).

Synopsis: Rwanda smallholder agricultural commercialization survey: Overview using selective categorical variables

Increased commercialization of smallholder farmers is a major emphasis of Rwanda’s PSTA4 and will continue with PSTA5, as well as other policy documents related to agriculture. Although PSTA4 sought to increase the profitability of smallholder production, efforts to address accelerating commercialization were limited due to the absence of data and analysis on returns to commercial production systems. Relatively little was known about smallholder agricultural decision-making and the associated costs and returns to production systems among these farmers. This policy note introduces an important research initiative that will explore various aspects of commercialization by Rwandan smallholder farmers and is meant as a general introduction to smallholder commercialization. In subsequent research papers, more detailed studies based on these initial findings will contribute to an improved understanding of agricultural smallholders by providing (1) more nuanced analysis of commercial farmer typologies, (2) estimates of returns to commercial production systems across multiple farmers typologies, and (3) recommendations designed to improve interventions in smallholder commercialization. This brief provides a summary of the results obtained from the 2022 Smallholder Farmer Commercialization Survey (IFPRI 2024). Designed to be representative at the national and provincial levels, ten households were surveyed in 202 villages resulting in a total of 2,020 interviewed households. The survey covered a wide range of topics including: 1) household demographics; 2) migration, household assets and house conditions, and shocks; 3) household farm characteristics; 4) household expenditures (consumption and non-consumption), and 5) household income sources. The survey instrument was developed using other IFPRI surveys and was referenced to the 2020 AHS and the 2016-2017 EICV5 surveys from NISR.

Conflict and food security in Sudan: Policy insights and recommendations

The conflict in Sudan erupted on April 15, 2023. Originating from competition over resources and political power, it emerged as direct warfare between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. It has escalated into a crisis with profound impacts on the nation’s socio-economic fabric. More specifically, the conflict has led to a severe humanitarian crisis, disrupted agrifood systems across the country, restricted economic activity, and curtailed the livelihoods of millions. The conflict continues to impede access to essential services and markets, resulting in significant scarcity of life-saving goods and services. As of March 2024, 14,790 Sudanese have been killed (Figure 1), and 8.4 million have been displaced, of which1.7 million have sought refuge in other countries.

Building pathways out of poverty in Baidoa: A randomized controlled trial: Evidence from the midline survey

Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and severe poverty, ongoing armed conflict, and recurring droughts and floodings have created a humanitarian crisis characterized by a high level of internal displacement. Baidoa city – the site of this evaluation – hosts 517 internally displaced persons (IDP) sites with almost 600,000 households, and 64 percent of the individuals living in these sites are women and girls. According to the 2nd Somali High Frequency Survey (Pape and Karamba 2019), poverty is particularly high in IDP settlements (along with rural areas), exacerbated by high unemployment rates and an absence of income-generating opportunities. This brief reports on midline findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluating the project Building Pathways Out of Poverty for Ultra-poor IDPs and Vulnerable Host Communities in Baidoa, an ultra-poor graduation (UPG) intervention implemented by World Vision and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). The project seeks to enable ultra-poor internally displaced households to graduate from extreme poverty and begin an upward trajectory to self-reliance for displacement-affected communities by enabling gender-sensitive, context-appropriate, and sustainable livelihoods in an urban setting. IFPRI is collaborating with World Vision to conduct the trial.

Effects of a partial ban on Papua New Guinea’s imports of poultry products

In 2023, Papua New Guinea introduced a partial ban on poultry imports from Australia and Asian countries (representing about 70 percent of total PNG poultry imports) in response to the biosecurity threat posed by Avian Influenza (bird flu). Such a restriction on supply has the potential to lead to sharp price increases, steep reductions in household consumption and greater food insecurity. This memo presents an overview of PNG’s poultry sector and describes an analysis of the ef fects of these trade restrictions on poultry prices, production and consumption using a partial equilibrium model of PNG’s poultry sector. This new analysis builds on earlier work (Dorosh and Schmidt, 2023) that explored the implications of a total ban on poultry imports, by simulating the impacts of a partial poultry ban, including the effects on various household groups within PNG.

Potential impacts of an El Niño related drought on sweet potato consumption and prices in Papua New Guinea

Sweet potato plays an important role in the food system of Papua New Guinea (PNG), accounting for over 12 percent of total calories consumed in the country (IFPRI,2023). Three-quarters of sweet potato production takes place in the highlands where it is harvested throughout the year (Chang et al., 2013). However, the production and consumption of sweet potatoes in PNG faces several challenges, including climate change, pests and diseases, and market access constraints. In particular, a significant decline in sweet potato production due to an El Niño-related drought in early 2024 is a realistic possibility. This memo describes analysis using a partial equilibrium model to estimate the potential effects of a shortfall in sweet potato production on market prices and consumption, including consumption levels for various types of households in the highlands and other parts of PNG. We also discuss policy options for mitigating negative effects on household welfare.

Building food security and resilience through intraregional trade in Latin America and the Caribbean

Intraregional agrifood trade in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) offers untapped opportunities for expansion. Comparative advantages in food production as well as variation in consumption patterns create a high degree of complementarity across many LAC countries. Making use of this variation to expand trade within the region could improve access to, availability, and diversity of food, as well as ensure more stable food supplies. Stable supplies are particularly important for food security given the likelihood of continued shocks, such as conflicts, epidemics, economic crises, and extreme weather events. Although trade between countries in the region plays an important role as a source of imports, more than 60 percent of LAC’s food purchases come from extraregional suppliers. However, the shares of intra- and extraregional imports vary by subregion. About 60 percent of South American food imports come from regional suppliers, but only 20 percent of Mexican and Central American imports come from LAC suppliers. In the Caribbean, the share of regional suppliers in food imports has increased over the past five years but is currently only 29 percent (UN Statistics Division, UN Comtrade 2022). Most intraregional trade takes place within subregions, meaning that trade between countries from different LAC subregions is less common and thus presents the greatest opportunities for expansion. In this analysis of trade opportunities and challenges, the authors show there is potential to expand intraregional agrifood trade in major products such as corn, soybeans, soybean meal, wheat, poultry meat, milk, and concentrated cream. Facilitating intraregional trade and establishing new trade relations between LAC countries (the extensive margin of trade) where complementarities have been identified would provide opportunities for growth in the agrifood sec tors of these countries, make LAC food systems more resilient to supply shocks, and reduce food insecurity by ensuring efficient and reliable food supplies for consumers. However, despite progress in recent years, a number of factors — including high tariff rates, nontariff measures, origin requirements, government procurement rules, government support, and high transportation costs — continue to hamper the expansion of intraregional trade. This analysis focuses exclusively on intraregional trade; it does not examine opportunities for trade with partners outside the LAC region or compare opportunities for intra regional trade to extraregional trade. While such analysis could be valuable for informing trade policy, one of our primary objectives is to encourage stronger linkages between the economies of LAC countries regardless of trade opportunities outside the region. This goal reflects the expectation that improving these linkages among neighboring countries will have positive spillovers in the form of improved resilience to shocks, stronger political cohesion, and broader cooperation across these economies. \To accurately contextualize this analysis, it is necessary to highlight the diversity of food systems within LAC. While “LAC” is a standard regional classification and our analysis includes all LAC countries, the agrifood sectors, and especially agrifood trade, in the various LAC subregions face diverse challenges and opportunities. For example, these challenges and opportunities differ markedly between the Caribbean island countries and the larger Latin American countries, most notably Brazil and Argentina. These distinctions should inform the interpretation and implementation of our findings.

Sri Lanka’s New Fertilizer Cash Grant (FCG) Scheme for paddy: What do participants and associates look and hope for?

Since independence, the Government of Sri Lanka has implemented various policies and initiatives to boost agricultural production. One of the enduring, costly, and politically sensitive measures aimed at promoting paddy farming has been the fertilizer subsidy program which was initiated in 1962 and continued for over six decades. Since then, the subsidy policy has undergone many changes, including the introduction of the Fertilizer Cash Grant (FCG) Program in 2016. The FCG program’s key objectives were to reduce the excessive use of synthetic fertilizers, promote the adoption of organic fertilizers, and empower farmers to make informed decisions regarding the use of fertilizers in appropriate quantities in their fields post soil testing. The FCG program commenced in 2016 but it lasted only for four seasons and price subsidy was reintroduced.

Compounding stresses confront rural households in southern Malawi

Southern Malawi has historically been less food secure than the rest of the country, and the current lean season will be no different. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee expects 2,460,000 people in the Southern Region (29% of its population) to require humanitarian assistance at the peak of the lean season in February and March 2024, compared to 1,560,000 people in the Central Region (18% of its population) and 388,000 people in the Northern Region (15% of its population) (MVAC 2023). The Southern Region is home to 44% of Malawi’s population, but to 56% of those in need of humanitarian assistance. More people in the Southern Region are in danger of going hungry in the coming months than in the Central and Northern regions combined. But who are these people, what is behind their vulnerability, and what does the future have in store for them?

AI-assisted dietary assessment and personalized “nudges” in urban Ghana: Preparing for scale-up

Diet-related risk factors cause 11 million deaths annually, making them the largest single factor included in the Global Burden of Disease analyses (Afshin et al. 2019). Recent trends associated with urbanization and the “nutrition transition”—which is characterized by shifts to unhealthy diets and increased consumption of energy dense and nutrient poor processed foods and decreased physical activity—have led to increases in rates of overweight and obesity (Popkin et al. 2020). Regular data collection to document population-level dietary intake is essential for effective, evidence-based nutrition actions (Hargreaves et al. 2022). However, collecting and analyzing dietary data is complex and expensive (Bell et al. 2017). Dietary assessments typically involve the use of the multi-pass 24-hour recall (24HR) method, which has been validated in adults reporting their intake and/or that of their young children (Gibson and Ferguson 2008), and to some degree in adolescents. The costs associated with conducting a 24HR are approximately $500 per recall (Adams et al. 2022). Mobile phone-based tools have potential to lower the cost of diet assessment; however, evidence is lacking on the validity and feasibility of conducting phone-based assessments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (Bell et al. 2017).

Agrifood system employment: Innovations, policies, and knowledge gaps

Key messages: • Seven agriculture and agrifood value chain innovations are found to improve employment and income opportunities in the agrifood value chains. • Such income and employment require adequate enabling policies, including infrastructure investments, support to wholesale market development, social protection, labor market regulation, and supporting collective action organizations. • Eleven knowledge gaps need to be addressed to better inform agrifood system policy and investment decision-making.

Pakistan: Strategy to promote climate smart agriculture practices

Pakistan is a case of double injustice contributing a minuscule share of global greenhouse gases, yet it is bearing the brunt of global climate change impacts. It ranks among the top 10 countries vulnerable to climate change (Eckstein et al., 2021). The 2022 IPCC Report underlines the heightened vulnerabilities because of global warming and climate change leading to more floods. The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 20221, Pakistan could lose more than 9 percent of its annual GDP due to climate change. The Notre Dame- Gain Matrix2 ranks Pakistan 5th most impacted country by climate change shocks and is positioned as the 36th least-prepared nation to cope with climate changes (The World Bank Group, 2021). Besides, Pakistan scores worst on the indicator of Agriculture Capacity3 at 0.939. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate changes because of its arid to semi-arid environmental conditions (Nasim et al., 2018; Ullah et al., 2019, Ghaffar et al., 2022). Over the last two decades, the country has been facing the challenges of rising temperature, extreme heatwaves, drought, intense and erratic precipitation, water stress, glacial melting, recurring flash floods and super floods in 2010 and 2022. The combination of reduced crop yields, water scarcity, and changing agricultural practices can lead to severe food insecurity and economic challenges for marginalized communities and more importantly, for farmers. In July-August 2022, Pakistan faced unprecedented rainfall and riverine floods damaging cultivated crops, livestock and the infrastructure. Approximately 4.4 million acres of crops were damaged, and nearly 1 million animals perished. The total cost of damages and losses was estimated at $30.13 billion, with agriculture accounting for $12.9 billion (43 percent of the total) (Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2021-22).

What can we learn about women’s empowerment in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in Malawi? Findings from the new Women’s Empowerment metric for WASH (WE-WASH)

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)-related challenges around the world can negatively affect communities and individuals, but people in resource-constrained areas face additional obstacles in preventing and recovering from the consequences of inadequate WASH infrastructure. WASH interventions in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) often target women as key actors for achieving project outcomes and many aim to improve the quality of women’s lives; fewer, however, have a specific focus on empowering women. A systematic review concluded that studies within the WASH sector have rarely focused specifically on empowering women, despite efforts to reach and benefit them (Caruso et al. 2022). In a review of gender-sensitive WASH indicators that have been used in the peer-reviewed literature, gray literature, and toolkits from organizations operating in WASH, only around 10% of the 162 indicators identified specifically measured empowerment. Given the limitations of previous approaches to measuring WASH-related empowerment, we recently developed a Women’s Empowerment metric for WASH (WE-WASH), a suite of indicators to measure women’s and men’s agency in the WASH sector, based on data collected in Malawi and Nepal. This project note first provides some context for the Malawi study, then describes our overall approach to developing the WE-WASH indicators and summarizes the implementation of the WE-WASH question naire, and then presents some key findings emerging from Malawi.

Needs and opportunities for measuring rural women’s empowerment in Guatemala: Possible applications of a Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)

Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is reflected across policy priorities at global and national levels. Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) seeks to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Moreover, the Government of Guatemala, through the Presi-dential Secretariat for Women (SEPREM), has supported these priorities through the National Policy for the Promotion and Comprehensive Development of Women and the Equality of Opportunities Plan 2008-2023, particularly under its Equitable Economic and Productive Development policy line, which gives the agenda a thematic focus on women’s economic empowerment. Both policy instruments are designed to guide public institutions in achieving the goals that have been set by the Council of Minis-ters of Women of Central America and the Dominican Republic (COMMCA). Economic empowerment is one of the main lines of policy action under the Regional Policy on Gender Equality and Equity of SICA (PRIEG/SICA). As such, women’s economic empowerment is being prioritized at the national level in Guatemala, and also at the regional level across Central America and the Dominican Republic. La igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de las mujeres y niñas se ve reflejado en distintas prioridades de políticas a nivel global y local. El Objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible 5 busca lograr la igualdad de género y empoderar a todas las mujeres y niñas. De forma correspondiente, el Gobierno de Guatemala por medio de la Secretaría Presidencial de la Mujer (Seprem) ha impulsado el tema, tanto a través de la Política Nacional de Promoción y Desarrollo Integral de las Mujeres y su Plan de Oportunidades PNPDIM-PEO 2008-2023, dentro el Eje de Desarrollo Económico y Productivo con equidad; así como también en la agenda temática de empoderamiento económico de las mujeres. Ambos instrumentos son orientadores de las instituciones públicas, a la vez que, dentro de las acciones que se han coordinado desde el Consejo de Ministras de la Mujer de Centroamérica y República Dominicana (COMMCA), el empoderamiento económico es uno de los ejes de la Política Regional de Igualdad y Equidad de Género del SICA (PRIEG/SICA). Así, el empoderamiento económico de las mujeres es una prioridad a nivel nacional en Guatemala, pero también a nivel regional.

The contributions of Public Works in watershed rehabilitation and irrigation in Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance supported Productive Safety Net Program areas of Ethiopia to resilience and nutrition

The Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), launched in 2005 and operating in eight regional states, harmonizes the delivery of donor support to vulnerable populations experiencing chronic food insecurity and shocks. PSNP investments aim to improve food consumption and nutrition, while also protecting and developing assets for sustaining stable access to food. PSNP differentiates two types of beneficiaries: (1) Households with no able-bodied members that receive direct support in the form of cash transfers or in-kind support; and (2) Public work (PW) beneficiaries, who receive payments in exchange for work on various types of productive investments, such as watershed rehabilitation, irrigation, road and other infrastructure. This policy note summarizes results from an assessment of the impacts of PSNP investments supported by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) in watershed rehabilitation and small-scale irrigation (SSI) on food security, nutrition and resilience in Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray regions of Ethiopia and Dire Dawa City administrative area between 2017 and 2021. The interventions assessed include area closures, SSI, other physical soil and water conservation practices, and overall watershed-level activities. Investments in SSI included construction of river-diversion schemes, lined canals, earthen canals, ponds and rainwater harvesting schemes. As watershed rehabilitation interventions take years to decades to show impacts, two time periods were used in the biophysical assessment: long-term changes, covering the period of 1984 to 2020, as well as short-term changes that specifically covered the period prior and during the USAID BHA program. The assessment combined socioeconomic analysis (quantitative and qualitative), as well as high-resolution remote sensing and biophysical modeling in selected watersheds. Remote sensing and biophysical mod eling provided insights on environmental effects and climate resilience of BHA’s watershed rehabilitation interventions, whereas quantitative and qualitative analyses helped identify the food security, nutrition and resilience impacts of these interventions. Of note, the assessment was undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic and was also substantially affected by civil conflicts in the northern part of the country. This affected both the study design and data access and the implementation of the BHA-supported PSNP PW investments. The results should be seen in this context.

Outsource agrifood service MSMEs facilitating pivoting by fruits & vegetables farmers, wholesalers, and retailers

There is an important gap in the literature regarding evidence about the emergence of outsource agrifood services. We contend that there are few studies on outsource services for differentiated product value chains, particularly in developing countries. To some extent, also, there is a knowledge gap regarding the use and effectiveness of eco-certification and labeling compliance-assisting services in developed countries. The bulk of attention on outsource services is centered at the commodity phase (such as with bulk grains) and the modern stage, and less attention is being paid to the product differentiation phase. To fill these voids, we focus on three country illustrations, ranging in the product cycle phases from transitional to transitional-modern to modern, and from early differentiating case in Ethiopia (on basic quality) to intermediate differentiating case in Indonesia (on advanced quality and variety differentiation in mangoes), to advanced-differentiating case in France (on eco-labeling and certification). We focus on horticulture as it is rapidly growing, and rapidly differentiating both in developed and developing countries. We conclude that policies and public investments facilitating the formation of these services are important. Importantly, we found that without these emerging outsource services, farmers would not have been able to be resilient to the shocks of market requirements and climate change.

Associations between women’s empowerment and maternal depressive symptoms: A cross-sectional analysis from Balaka and Ntcheu districts in Malawi

Enhanced women’s empowerment has been linked to improvements in various areas of women’s lives, such as in creased access to resources, decision-making power, and a manageable workload. It can also have positive effects on child health out comes, including nutritional status and early childhood development. However, there can also be trade-offs for women, such as their own nutritional outcomes. While the relationship between women’s empowerment and child health outcomes has been extensively studied, there is limited research on the relationship between women’s empowerment and their own mental health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). One aspect of mental health, maternal depressive symptoms is prevalent in these countries and can have a negative impact on both the mothers and their children. In Malawi, Stewart et al. (2010) find that 30 percent of mothers of young children, attending a child health clinic grapple with depressive episodes. In this study, we explore the relationship between women’s empowerment, as measured by the pro-WEAI, and maternal depressive symptoms, as measured by the 20 symptom Self-Reported Questionnaire (SRQ-20). The Pro-WEAI is particularly useful because it allows us to explore the relationship of various components of women’s empowerment with maternal depressive symptoms.

Characterization of MSME outlet types in Viet Nam

During 2023, researchers from Work Package 2 (WP2) of the Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) initiative conducted three linked surveys to learn more about micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that currently supply foods within urban, peri-urban, and rural locations in Viet Nam and devise ways to foster their supply of sustainable nutritious foods (SNFs). The surveys had three linked goals—to better characterize the business environment in which MSMEs operate; to understand any constraints they face in selling more SNFs; and to help inform interventions with scaling potential that could increase the availability of SNFs for consumers. The first survey consisted of a listing exercise (or the “short audit”), the second survey was a longer survey targeting outlets from the listing that had a higher chance of being MSMEs and could potentially modify their food offerings, and the third survey was targeted at suppliers of those MSMEs, with the objective of identifying any potential constraints at the supplier level for expanding the offering of SNFs. The sample for the third survey was derived from the MSME sample. Ceballos et al. (2023) describe in detail the data collection efforts conducted, including sampling strategies, overall sample composition, and implementation of the three surveys. This document presents selected results from these three surveys, with a focus on the second MSME survey. The next section describes the typology of outlets enumerated in the different surveys, and the final outlet groupings used in the analyses in this note. The MSME survey results section discusses the main findings from the MSME survey in terms of general ownership characteristics, employment patterns, business skills and access to finance, food offerings, and nutrition knowledge and interest in offering more SNFs to clients, distinguishing across outlet groups and vendor clusters. The Supplier survey results section presents the main findings from the supplier survey, in terms of food offerings, the composition of their client portfolio, their level of formalization, business skills, and credit use, and their interest in selling more nutritious foods. The final section summarizes the findings and concludes.

Behavioral intelligence in plant breeding: A framework for qualitative research

This issue brief introduces a conceptual framework to describe the factors that inform farmers’ varietal uptake choices, by integrating choice behavior alongside more contextual and technical aspects of seed uptake. The framework was developed to support qualitative data analysis for generating behavioral intelligence about farmers’ decision-making about crop varieties, which may be of use to government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and companies that operate in the seed sector.

Improving fruit and vegetable intake and production in Tanzania: An evaluation of the FRESH end-to-end approach

Poor diets are a primary cause of malnutrition and the leading cause of disease worldwide. Improving diets, including increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake, could save one in five lives annually. Micronutrients are essential for health; those obtained from F&Vs have a lower environmental footprint than those obtained from other foods making F&Vs essential to sustainable healthy diets. Globally, F&V intake is below recommended levels. However, the extent and nature of the problem is poorly understood due to insufficient data on dietary intake and food environments, especially in low- and middle-income countries. More than 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Often, F&V are among the least affordable foods. Even when F&V are accessible and affordable, intake is too low6 highlighting the role of desirability in F&V intake. Solutions for improving diet quality, in part by increasing F&V intake, will need to be multifaceted and interconnected. Solutions should start with understanding dietary patterns, and addressing barriers across desirability, accessibility, affordability, and availability using an end-to-end approach.

Resilient Cities Urban Country Profile: Rwanda

Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. National strategies aim to eliminate chronic malnutrition by 2050. Overall, the country is on track for global nutrition targets for child wasting, overweight and recommended breastfeeding practices. However, there are differences in nutrition challenges between rural and urban areas. The dominance of the agricultural economy at the national level, higher poverty and stunting rates in rural areas has led to a greater focus on promoting food and nutrition security in rural areas.

WEAGov Nigeria pilot study: Findings and policy implications

WEAGov assesses the state of women’s voice and agency in national agrifood policymaking. Like IFPRI’s Kaleidoscope Model, it adopts a policy process approach, looking at every stage of the policy cycle — from why certain issues become salient and how policy solutions to address them are designed, to the organizational strategies and budgetary outlays that shape policy implementation, to how policies are assessed against their objectives. Within each of these stages, WEAGov examines whether women are being considered, whether their voices are included, and whether they are influencing actions and decisions.

Local governance in anticipatory action and crisis response: A new study in Mali

How best to deliver aid programs in fragile contexts and whether donors can support resilience in these contexts are long-standing questions among development practitioners and scholars. While there is widespread agreement that “local context” matters and should be taken into account when designing and delivering aid programs, it is difficult to know what aspects of local context matter and when, who to involve in locally driven decision-making (when there are myriad social and political forces), and how potential tradeoffs between competing preferences, needs, and priorities of local actors differ across space. Even when local context is beyond the influence of donors, a better understanding of local politi cal economy dynamics can help donors make better decisions and avoid unintended consequences.

Key findings from midline evaluation of Egypt’s forsa graduation program

Forsa is a pilot economic inclusion program implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS) in Egypt. The goal of the program is to graduate beneficiaries of Takaful to economic self-reliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or small-scale productive enterprises. The Forsa program began in 2023 after significant delays. Obstacles to implementation included the Covid-19 pandemic, Egypt’s economic crisis following the Ukraine-Russia war, and administrative challenges with procurement approvals.

Challenges for private sector job matching in rural Egypt: Results from a survey of forsa employers

Increasing formal employment for youth and women is a key goal of the Forsa pilot graduation intervention and Egyptian government policy in general. As detailed in Forsa evaluation reports, matching Takaful beneficiaries with jobs in the private sector is a major challenge from the perspective of households. In this policy note, we examine the challenges from the perspective of potential employers. We review literature of the market failures that may contribute to difficulties with job matching in rural Egypt and present results from a small telephone survey of Forsa employers.

Integrated simulation framework for the impacts of large dams: Example of the GERD

Efficient water resources management is essential for the sustainable development of nations, and large dams are an important tool for achieving this endeavor. Here, we present an integrated approach to simulating the impacts of large dams, integrating river systems infrastructure, hydrodynamic, and economywide models. We apply the framework to examine the biophysical, GDP, and distributional impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on Sudan.

Qualitative fieldwork to identify CSA practices preferred by women farmers in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Promoting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices is an important step toward enhancing farmer resilience to climate change. Given the differences in the resilience capacities, operating space, and response options of men and women farmers, it is imperative to understand the gendered preferences for and constraints to their adoption of CSA practices. This policy brief summarizes qualitative research conducted in rural India, Kenya, and Uganda to identify CSA practices preferred by women and men farmers. The findings highlight the need for gender-responsive finance models and information channels to ensure that support to climate change adaptation does not further widen the gender gap in agricultural resources, agency, and achievement.

A field experiment on bargaining for seed reveals bias against women agripreneurs: Summary of findings and policy recommendations

This policy note summarizes results from a Lab-in-the-field experiment1 in eastern Uganda, where a representative sample of 760 smallholder maize farmers were given the opportunity to bargain over a bag of maize seed from either a male or female seller. Specifically, we test whether the gender of the seed seller impacts the seed buyer’s negotiation strategies and the eventual outcomes in bilateral price negotiations. The findings reveal that buyers confronted with a female seller were less likely to accept the seller’s initial offer price and responded with a lower counter price compared to farmers faced with a male seller. Negotiations, on average, took one additional round when the seller was a woman and resulted in a transaction price that was almost 9 percent lower. These results relate to previous research with agro-input dealers in Uganda which showed that female managed/owned agro-input shops are perceived less favorable in terms of quality of seed sold and price competitive ness. Policies and programs working to advance women’s empowerment through agribusiness need to recognize these gendered biases, and increase investment in public campaigns, extension and training to change attitudes towards women entrepreneurs.

Challenges and opportunities in implementing video-based extension approaches targeting women farmers: An implementer’s perspective

Agricultural extension services play an important role in agricultural development. Timely and reliable information services are key to improving farmers’ knowledge of strategies to increase agricultural productivity, assisting them in accessing inputs and credit, providing early warning against pests and other shocks, and offering them critical advice on climate action. However, equitable access to knowledge, information, and technology remains challeng ing in most countries. This inequity is even more pronounced among farmers from marginalized groups, including women farmers, resulting in their limited access to climate resilience-enhancing technologies and practices. This note summarizes findings from implementers of participatory video-based extension interventions in India, Kenya, and Uganda. The findings suggest that videos targeting women farmers can reach them effectively. Still, participa tory video-based extension should be accompanied by group discussions, providing complementary inputs, and dismantling other barriers that impede women’s agency and achievements in agriculture.

Women’s empowerment, poverty, and crop productivity: Evidence from Uganda

Evidence suggests that women’s limited access to resources, agency, and associated achievements affect agricul tural productivity in much of Africa and Asia. These relationships are further mediated by poverty, which affects the livelihood strategies that are available to, and pursued by, rural women and men. This policy note provides insights on how the relationship between women’s empowerment and crop productivity differs for households at different levels of poverty. The findings suggest that better-off households with more-empowered women achieve higher agricultural productivity, while the opposite holds for income-poor households with more-empowered women. Thus, to be successful, resilience strategies need to not only be gender-sensitive but also consider addi tional time and other constraints of income-poor women farmers.

Do informational videos impact awareness, knowledge, and adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices? Insights from rural Uganda

Uganda is highly vulnerable to adverse impacts from climate change, including erratic rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts, and increased frequency of pests and diseases. While many climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices have been identified, a gender gap in access to and adoption of these practices persists. This study tested par ticipatory video-based extension to reach underserved women and men farmers in parts of central Uganda and assessed its impacts on gendered awareness, knowledge, and adoption of CSA practices as well as women’s empowerment. We find limited impacts on awareness and knowledge and significant impacts for the adoption of several CSA practices. We also find some improvement in women’s decision-making but a decline in their group membership. We propose strategies to strengthen the uptake of CSA practices that can be implemented along side participatory video-based extension.

Financial access and digital services within agri-food value chains in Bangladesh

Agri-food value chains are a crucial element of food systems and local economies around the world. Existing estimates show that intermediary agri-food value chain actors—the operating enterprises that transport and transform food from the farmgate to retailers—account for 60 to 75 percent of value-added produced by the entire agricultural sector of an economy.

Agricultural production in Tajikistan: Evidence from twelve districts in Khatlon Province, 2015–2023

Survey data from 2000 households in 12 districts of Khatlon Province, USAID’s Zone of Influence (ZOI), were analyzed to document changes in the agriculture sector between 2015 and 2023. Key findings • Participation in agriculture remained constant at 85 percent of households, yet the average cultivated area significantly decreased from 2015 to 2023, likely due to the parallel increase in the number of households in the study area as well as the further division of dehkan farms. • Cropping patterns have changed since 2015. Among others, we find a stark increase in cultivation of maize, whereas cotton is grown at similar frequency but on a significantly smaller average plot area. Overall, we observe a positive increase in the diversity of (semi-)annual crops. • Mechanization is used for land preparation of plots for nearly all major crops now, up from much lower levels in 2015. Mechanization for harvesting significantly increased on plots with fodder crops (from 6 percent to 15 percent) and maize plots (from 2 percent to 8 percent). Most households rely on rental services as few own the needed machinery. • More households have water pumps, greenhouses, and cold storage, and more household and presidential plots having irrigation in 2023 than in 2015. Agricultural innovations including drip irrigation and solar panels also emerge but are still implemented at very low levels (<1 percent). • Cattle ownership declined from 2015 to 2023 and, accordingly, fewer households have cows producing milk (40 percent vs. 33 percent). This may—at least partly—explain the lower rates of dairy consumption observed among female respondents in 2023. • Poultry ownership increased dramatically (from 7 percent to 25 percent) and is now owned at similar rates across different types of households, including more vulnerable or disadvantaged households. Accordingly, there is more household-level consumption of eggs in the survey area.

Agricultural production in Tajikistan: Evidence from twelve districts in Khatlon Province, 2015–2023 [in Tajik]

Evaluation of a livestock financing project in Bangladesh: Navigating operational, environmental, and behavioral challenges

Smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries have limited access to finance, due to the pau city of banks and other financial institutions in rural areas. As a result, banks and other formal financial institutions tend not to know much about farming as a business, and therefore they hesitate to extend credit to farmers. Such reluctance is often attributed to the elevated costs and risks linked with small, geographically dispersed farms, as well as the farmers’ lack of collateral. Microfinance has emerged as a crucial intervention in bridging this gap. However, the fixed and rigid repayment structures of microfinance institutions (MFIs) often clash with the seasonal nature of agricultural production. This mismatch creates financial strain for farmers, who must manage cash flows that are inherently unpredictable due to factors like weather variability and market fluctuations. These challenges underscore the need for more flexible and tailored financial solutions.

Feed the Future Guatemala Value Chains Project: Summary of impact evaluation study

Guatemala experiences high and continued chronic malnutrition and poverty rates, with a particular concentration around predominantly rural and indigenous areas in the Western Highlands. Agricultural development is similarly low in the region, with farmers generally cultivating small landholdings, showing low agricultural productivity, and having limited ability for capital investment and an overall lack of market opportunities, combined with a relatively weak government support. This brief presents the main findings of the impact evaluation of USAID’s Feed the Future (FTF) Guatemala Value Chains Project that aimed to increase agricultural incomes, strengthen resilience, and improve nutritional outcomes of small farmers and their families in the Western Highlands of the country. The Project was created in 2017, building on the successes and lessons learned from the previous five years of implementation of the FTF Initiative in Guatemala, and relying on four expected results: improving agricultural productivity and diversifying income generation alternatives; expanding access to markets; increasing resilience through implementation of climate-smart and nutrition sensitive agriculture; and strengthening the agriculture and food security enabling environment.

The Benefits from Climate Information as a Source of Empowerment: Findings from an Experiment in Zambia

In this note, we summarize our experimental work in Zambia that seeks to evaluate the benefits of Climate Information Services (CIS) for smallholder farming households. To quantify the benefits of CIS, we compare participants’ simulated agricultural investment decisions both with and without the provision of forecasts and advice. Additionally, we invite couples to play the game both as individuals and jointly to test whether CIS information can help align individuals’ preferred investment choices with jointly made investment decisions.

Bundling cash loans with agricultural input loans for farmers in Nigeria: A pilot study

Credit allows borrowers to access funds required to make an investment before returns materialize. For smallholder farmers, who must invest in agricultural inputs (i.e., seeds, chemicals, equipment, land, and labor) during the planting season before earning income from the sale of agricultural produce after har vest, credit helps alleviate liquidity constraints and promotes the ability of local agricultural production to support nutrition and food security. In rural Nigeria, access to credit—especially formal credit from finan cial institutions—is limited. Data collected in 2020 show that less than a third of households in rural Ni geria report using credit in the previous 12 months and only two percent of rural households borrowed credit from a financial institution. The rest is borrowed informally from friends, family, or local money lenders. In the absence of credit, smallholder farmers must cover the costs of agricultural production with their own funds that they have available during the planting season. This constrains agricultural production and contributes, in part, to the large gaps in agricultural productivity between high-income and low-in come countries around the world.

Do social protection programs in South Asia have the potential to be nutrition-sensitive? Insights from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan

Social protection programs (SPPs) are designed to help individuals and households cope with chronic poverty, destitution, and vulnerability. In the context of food systems, SPPs can help tackle the challenge of affordability of healthy diets. Nutrition-sensitive SPPs include conditions or additional interventions that enhance impacts on nutrition. This research note organizes SPPs in South Asia using an existing framework, describes their characteristics (scale, entitled benefits, and eligibility) and provides examples of features that can be added to SPPs to make them more nutrition-sensitive.

Welfare and vulnerability in Tajikistan: Evidence from twelve districts in Khatlon Province, 2015–2023

Household survey data from February-March 2023 and February-March 2015 were analyzed to document changes in welfare of households in twelve districts of Khatlon Province, USAID’s Zone of Influence (ZOI), over the last eight years. Key findings: • Housing conditions improved, indicating improved living conditions. Only 1 percent of households had improved sanitation in 2015, but nearly half (49 percent) of all households did so in 2023. • Total consumption expenditures on food, non-food, and durables increased nearly 10 percent (in real terms) between 2015 and 2023 • Expenditures on food increased, but these were used to purchase more expensive food rather than improving dietary quality. This led to a stagnation in diet diversity among women of which 70 percent have inadequate dietary diversity. Household consumption patterns do show improvements over time. • Poverty declined by about 10.4 percent, but movements of households in and out of poverty between 2015 and 2023 suggest that a significant share of households are at risk of falling back into poverty in the face of adversity. • Correlates with consumption expenditures and poverty demonstrate that households with more household members, with fewer livelihood sources, and in more remote locations are worse off. Households with more women are more likely to be poor given women’s limited income generating opportunities. • Households that participated in agricultural development activities were approximately 12.7 percent less likely to be poor than other households. Recommended actions The findings underscore the importance of the priorities specified in the Government of Tajikistan’s Agri-Food System and Sustainable Development Program (ASDP), specifically strategic priority 4 on food security and safety, and motivate the following policy recommendations: • Continue to support healthy diets through improved access to food as well as behavior change communication related to dietary diversity and consuming healthy food. • Further research should serve to understand pathways to lifting farmers out of poverty, including analyzing what works and why when implementing agricultural interventions. • Continued efforts are needed to mitigate women’s disproportionate susceptibility to poverty and their vulnerability to poverty-induced outcomes.

Description of MSME Survey in Viet Nam

During the first half of 2023, researchers associated with Work Package 2 (WP2) of the CGIAR Research Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) conducted three linked surveys to learn more about micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that currently supply foods within urban, peri-urban, and rural locations in Viet Nam and contribute to developing ways to foster their supply of sustainable nutritious foods. 1 Therefore, the surveys had three linked goals—to better characterize the business environment in which MSMEs operate; to understand any constraints they face in selling more sustainable nutritious foods; and to help inform interventions with scaling potential that could increase the availability of sustainable nutritious foods for consumers. The first survey was a listing exercise (or a short audit, as it is called by Work Package 1 of SHiFT). This listing exercise was almost exclusively an observational exercise, taking place within selected areas of the urban, peri-urban, and rural sites. The idea was to understand the proportion of different types of businesses available, what was sold at those businesses, and to understand if people could sit down at the establishment or not (particularly for restaurants). The second survey was a longer survey targeting outlets from the listing exercise that had a higher chance of being MSMEs and could potentially modify their food offerings. This MSME survey inquired about labor use, sources of foods or ingredients for foods sold, asset holdings of the business, access to and use of financial instruments, degree of formality, and perceptions of and desire to sell more sustainable nutritious foods. The MSME survey, in turn, was used to seed a third survey, targeted at suppliers, with the objective of identifying any potential constraints at the supplier level for expanding the offering of sustainable nutritious foods. Outlets participating in the MSME survey were asked to share the contact information of some of their suppliers, and a subset of these were reached by phone and administered a reduced version of the MSME questionnaire, inquiring about their businesses and perceptions. A secondary goal of the survey was to understand to what extent employment of women and youth relates to MSME activity. In particular, when devising interventions to help MSMEs offer more sustainable nutritious foods, we want to ensure that those interventions have either a positive or neutral effect on employment among women and youth; in other words, we want to ensure that they do not have a negative effect on employment among these populations.

ICTforAg 2023: Cultivating inclusion

ICTforAg is an annual convening where agricultural stakeholders and technology experts come together to share knowledge, find solutions, and form partnerships to address challenges in agri-food systems across low- and middle-income countries. The main goal of ICTforAg is to grow communities and catalyze meaningful conversations, insights, and collaborations, increase participation of participants from the developing world, promote knowledge sharing and learning, and inspire practitioners to develop inclusive and sustainable ICT solutions. ICTforAg has a strong history since 2015 and owes its success to the contributions made by various organizations to build this community. In 2023, CGIAR and DevGlobal, in partnership with USAID Feed the Future and DAI Digital Frontiers, jointly implemented ICTforAg 2023 as a global online conference on November 7-9 with 145 speakers across 40 sessions. Out of the 2,608 individuals who registered for the event, a total of 1,778 attendees (constituting 68% of registrants) participated over the three days. In addition to the main sessions, the conference also featured the Expo, virtual exhibition space that allowed various organizations from academia, research, and the private sector to showcase their innovations interactively, the Inspire Challenge, a new Pay-for-Results program intended to increase women’s participation in digital agri-food advisory services and programs, the ICTforAg+ Satellite Events, a series of locally-led satellite events in four countries (Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, and India), and the ICTforAg Learning Network, an online platform designed to support the collaboration amongst the global ICTforAg community of practice.

Measuring gender and social norms in agrifood systems: Evidence from Nigeria and Tanzania

Strengthening women’s resilience and participation in climate governance in the agri-food sector through public policies

Women are vulnerable to adverse climate change impacts and their active involvement and decision-making in the climate change and agrifood governance is limited, especially in the Global South. New research based on a strategic review of literature conducted as part of CGIAR research initiative HER+: Harnessing gender and social equality for resilience in agrifood systems indicate that public policies are vital instruments towards improving women’s participation in climate change governance and enhancing their resilience.

Agrifood system in India – state factsheet: Odisha

This factsheet provides a brief description of the economic structure and the size of the agrifood system of Odisha, an Indian state. The agrifood system comprises primary agriculture, food processing, agrifood trade, food services, and input supplies. We have constructed a multistate social accounting matrix (SAM) for the year 2017/18 to understand the size of Odisha’s agrifood system in comparison with the rest of India.

Agrifood system in India – state factsheet: Bihar

This factsheet provides a brief description of the economic structure and the size of the agrifood system of Bihar, an Indian state. The agrifood system comprises primary agriculture, food processing, agrifood trade, food services, and input supplies. We have constructed a multistate social accounting matrix (SAM) for the year 2017/18 to understand the size of Bihar’s agrifood system in comparison with the rest of India.

Agrifood system in India – state factsheet: Uttar Pradesh

This factsheet provides a brief description of the economic structure and the size of the agrifood system of Uttar Pradesh (UP), an Indian state. The agrifood system comprises primary agriculture, food processing, agrifood trade, food services, and input supplies. We have constructed a multistate social accounting matrix (SAM) for the year 2017/18 to understand the size of UP’s agrifood system in comparison with the rest of India.

Insights from farmers and extension agents: Perceptions of a participatory video intervention in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Impact of participatory video-based extension and posters on awareness, knowledge, and adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices: Insights from women farmers in Gujarat, India

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is critical for reducing smallholder farmers’ vulnerability and enhancing their capacity to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change. Constraints to information and extension access — especially among women farmers, who play a vital role in Indian agriculture — are increasingly acknowledged as a barrier for widespread adoption of CSA practices. This note summarizes results from a study implemented among smallholder women farmers in rural Gujarat, India, to assess the effectiveness of a participatory video and poster extension intervention on increasing awareness, knowledge, and adoption of CSA practices. The findings sug gest that videos and posters are a viable information delivery mechanism for promoting awareness around CSA practices but should be supplemented with additional capacity development, access to financial resources, and labor-sharing arrangements.

Myanmar Agricultural Performance Survey (MAPS) dry season 2023: Agricultural input markets, credit and extension services

This note provides an overview of agricultural input access and utilization for the post-monsoon (dry season) 2023 based on a nationally and regionally representative sample of 5001 crop farmers undertaken in June – July 2023. Most farmer input use decisions were taken prior to damage inflicted by Cyclone Mocha. Key findings • Access to mechanization services, tractors and combine harvesters (or threshers for pulses) was similar to the previous post-monsoon season and even showed recovery in most conflict areas. • In contrast to mechanization, access to seed was reduced in conflict areas. Almost half of all seed purchases nationally are made from neighboring farmers, indicating an opportunity to target extension to local informal seed producers to ensure quality. • Fertilizer application rates increased by 33 percent, driven especially by higher rates of urea application in response to higher paddy prices. The benefit-cost ratio of urea application to paddy crops averaged 2.09 at the urea sales price reported by agri-input dealers and 1.76 at farmer reported prices. The difference in reported prices likely reflects interest charges and local transport costs from the dealer to the farm. • Labor hiring by farmers increased in a tight rural labor market, resulting in wage increases averaging 1,000 MMK per day. The gap between male and female wages narrowed, especially in conflict areas. • Extension access deteriorated noticeably from a year ago. In-person extension services from public, private and NGO sources declined for cereals, oilseeds, and pulses, with the exception of private extension for groundnut. NGO extension services were sharply reduced and almost non-existent for some crops. Spatial analysis of extension access indicates that conflict is an important factor in extension access, pointing to an important role for improvements in mobile extension services. Yet increases in mobile extension access were modest and are unlikely to have compensated for the reduction in field extension agent access. • The share of farmers using credit changed little compared to the year before, but sources of credit did change. The share of farmers taking credit from Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank (MADB), microfinance institutions, private banks and money lenders all fell, while the share receiving credit form agricultural input retailers more than doubled. Recommendations • Improvements in the geographical coverage and content of mobile extension services could play an important role in offsetting reductions in in-person extension access. This is an opportunity for development partners to have a positive impact without increasing risk to beneficiaries or implementing partner staff. • The prevalence of local farmers as a seed source indicates that mobile extension services targeting informal seed producers could be important, along with facilitating access to certified seed for multiplication. • As nearly all chemical input distributors and machinery service providers depend on imports, access to foreign exchange is critically important.

Seed certification and maize, rice, and cowpea productivity in Nigeria

Despite the potential importance of seed quality to agricultural productivity growth, many governments in sub-Saharan Africa lack the capacity to expand quality assurance systems even where there is expressed interest. This brief summarizes the key insights from a recent study in Nigeria. The evidence points toward the benefits of pursuing balanced, flexible seed quality assurance systems rather than focusing singularly on expanding rigorous seed certification systems, as the country has done until recently. These recommendations are based on findings from the 2010–2018 period in Nigeria: Increased supply of certified seeds of maize, rice, and cowpea had positive effects on farm-level use of certified seeds, yields, and output, but these effects diminished as certified seed supply continued to expand. Moreover, yield gains from certified seeds tend to vary considerably across locations. As certified seed becomes more available to farmers, its use spreads from higher-return farms to lower-return farms, diminishing overall productivity benefits. These results are consistent with the view that singularly expanding rigorous seed certification faces diminishing returns. More balanced, pluralistic systems that also allow for moderate quality assurance, such as quality declared seed (QDS), may be worth trying in Nigeria.

Exploring how land inheritance shapes youth migration and work choices in rural Nigeria

Policymakers in Nigeria and other countries in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) are relying on agriculture to generate employment for the growing youth population. However, there is concern that youth engagement in agricultural production is declining in favor of other economic activities. “Rural-urban-rural” migra tion occurs mainly during intercrop intervals, as the cyclical nature of crop-related activities prompts African youth to seek more economic stability from nonagricultural employment during the off season (Yeboah and Jayne 2018). While comprehensive data on youth’s departure from Nigeria’s agriculture sector remain elusive, various studies indicate a heightened exit rate, particularly post-discovery of oil resources, and a notable 63 percent reduction in the time Nigerian youth spend in farming activities compared to adults (UNECA 2017). In general, discourse on youth unemployment, with specific pertinence to Africa, underscores the pivotal role of different economic structural transformations that are hindering the formation of “quality” employment opportunities (McMillan, Rodrik, and Verduzco-Gallo 2014).

Africa RISING in Malawi – impact brief

Interventions/Innovations The Africa RISING (AR) program in Malawi was implemented in Dedza and Ntcheu districts in the country’s Central region, primarily using an on-farm participatory approach. The program supported cropping system improvements through promotion of improved varieties and quality seeds for beans, soybeans, groundnuts, and pigeon peas. It also aimed to foster the adoption of sustainable and productivity enhancing practices (e.g., legume legume or maize-legume intercropping and consistent grain-legume rotation) and nutrient cycling for soil enrichment (e.g., building soil organic matter, implementing a rainfall responsive nitrogen fertilization strategy). Livestock interventions focused primarily on supplementary feeding of goats to promote animal health and weight gain. Increased agricultural productivity and the processing of more nutritious grain legumes were considered prime channels for improving household income, diet diversity, and overall nutrition.

From the ground up: Demining farmland and improving access to fertilizer to restore Ukraine’s agricultural production

In the two decades leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Ukraine had become a major producer and exporter of numerous agricultural commodities. In the 2020–2021 harvest season—the last season unaffected by Russia’s full-scale invasion—Ukraine was the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, honey, and walnuts worldwide; the third-largest exporter of maize, barley, and rapeseed; and the world’s top exporter of sunflower oil, sunflower meal, and millet. Due to Russia’s intentional attacks on all aspects of Ukraine’s agriculture sector, and collateral damage from hostilities, Ukraine’s production and exports are diminished today from prewar levels. As of June 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated that Ukraine’s agriculture sector had incurred $8.7 billion in direct damages to agricultural machinery, equipment, and storage facilities, as well as from stolen or damaged agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and seeds, and outputs, such as crops and livestock. The sector’s $40.3 billion losses represent farmers’ diminished incomes due to foregone production, lower selling prices for products, and higher operational costs across all stages of the agri-food value chain.

Can participatory video-based extension increase awareness and knowledge of climate adaptation practices? Insights from rural Kenya

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been promoted as a framework to identify a set of solutions that simultaneously sustain agricultural productivity and incomes, increase the resilience of agriculture, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, it has proven to be challenging to reach women farmers with information on CSA practices. This note summarizes results from a study that assessed whether participatory video-based extension approaches tailored to women’s preferred CSA approaches could reduce the gender gap in awareness and adoption of CSA practices in Kenya. The findings suggest that watching the videos increased awareness of the CSA practices promoted in the videos as well as other practices. However, watching the videos did not increase the adoption of the CSA practices. We propose strategies to strengthen the uptake of CSA practices alongside participatory video-based extension.

Contextualizing women’s and men’s trait preferences and choice options in the uptake of breeding products: a framework

Women and men value chain actors in low-income countries assess and choose varieties, animal breeds, or strains according to a multitude of factors, such as local agroecological conditions, production and consumption habits, and seed availability and accessibility. Continuous changes in the ecological, economic, and political contexts shape women’s and men’s day-to-day social interactions as well as their livelihood options and can create new needs for specific breeding products. However, the uptake of new breeding products is also contingent on women’s and men’s range of choice options. The existence and extent of these choice options depend on one’s social and economic position and capacity to negotiate access and control over strategic resources.

Examining the gender digital divide: A case study from rural Kenya

Worldwide, cell phones are used by 5.4 billion people. They are becoming increasingly prevalent in the rural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), providing smallholder farmers with access to agricultural markets. If they reduce information asymmetries between women and men farmers, they can also contribute to closing the gender gap in agricultural productivity. So far, however, digital innovations have had limited success in transforming agricultural systems. This may be due, in part, to the gender gap in cell-phone use. Rural women in LMICs—particularly those with low incomes, low literacy levels, or disabilities—are less likely than rural men to have access to cell phones, the Internet, digital currency, or other digital services. This policy note summarizes research intended to shed light on the impact of cell-phone ownership and use on the gender gap in agricultural productivity in LMICs.

Gendered information channels for climate-smart agriculture practices: Evidence from India, Kenya, and Uganda

Lack of access to information is an important barrier affecting women farmers’ adoption of climate-smart agri culture (CSA) practices and technologies. To overcome this barrier, the use of information and communication technologies is increasingly being promoted. However, digital tools might widen, rather than reduce, gendered information gaps given women’s lower use of mobile phones and mobile Internet as compared to men in sub Saharan African and South Asia. This policy note summarizes data on information channels that women and men farmers use for CSA practices in Gujarat, India, parts of Kenya, and central Uganda. The results can be used by governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other actor groups interested in ensuring equity in access to information on CSA practices in low- and middle-income countries.

Democratizing messaging? The role of ICTs in agriculture extension

Information and communications technology (ICT) in low- and middle-income countries has changed significantly over the past seven decades, starting with radio and newspapers and transforming almost daily with the rise of smartphones and mobile Internet. While ICT is an integral part of agricultural extension, little is known about how extension has been influenced by these changes in ICT. A systematic review of 133 papers focused on countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa found that changes in ICT have enabled a shift from linear dis semination and “one-way communication” to co-innovation and farmer-to-farmer learning, with the potential for increased democratization of agricultural extension. This note summarizes these findings.

Do climate-smart agricultural practices support adaptation, mitigation and productivity? A review of CSA practices used in participatory video interventions in India, Kenya, and Uganda

Climate change poses a threat to smallholder farmers worldwide, impacting livelihoods and agricultural pro duction. At the same time, agrifood systems account for about one-third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers synergistic practices that boost productivity, aid farmers in adapting to cli mate change, and have the potential to mitigate GHG emissions. This note reviews the extent to which a set of practices identified by smallholder farmers in India, Kenya, and Uganda for inclusion in a participatory video-based extension intervention meet the CSA criteria. The findings suggest that the practices hold triple-win potential but often several need to be applied as a package; they also need to be adapted to local conditions.

Monitoring the agri-food system in Myanmar: Rice millers – August 2023 survey round

In August 2023, we surveyed 388 active rice millers from 13 states and regions across Myanmar to learn more about the impacts of the current political and COVID-19 crises. This report presents the key results and analysis from those interviews. Key findings • Patterns of reported business disruptions show substantial improvements compared to a year ago, but limited changes since March 2023. Access to electricity remained the most common disruption and was reported to be the biggest challenge by more than half of the sample. Fuel cost, fuel access, and transportation costs were also common disruptions although they are far less common than in August 2022. • Larger mills mostly use electricity and are therefore most impacted by the persistent electrical supply issues. Yet some have expanded their power sources in the past three years by investing in electricity generators powered by husks or fuel. • Despite the challenges, milling throughput in 2023 is similar to 2022. However, paddy and rice storage volumes are significantly lower this year, while conditional average amount of credit provided to farmers increased significantly during the 2023 monsoon season. • Paddy and rice prices continued their rapid upward trajectory that began in mid-2022 and in August were 80 percent higher than one year prior and 2.5 times the price from 2021. The local Myanmar price changes are largely driven by global rice markets and foreign exchange rates. Looking forward • Recent policies to keep consumer rice prices low – including efforts to control rice prices and to limit export licensing – along with erratic foreign exchange policies can lead to increased price volatility and uncertainty for farmers, traders, millers, and exporters. If domestic paddy and rice prices fall because of these interventions, millers and farmers are less likely to recover investment costs, pay off debts, and make profits for further investment in next year’s productions.

Mitigating the impact of El Niño on hunger in Malawi

El Niño is a phase in an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every 2 to 7 years and typically lasts between 9 months and 2 years. El Niño affects the global weather patterns, resulting in above-average precipitation in some places and droughts in others. Malawi and its neighbors typically experience drier than usual weather during El Niño, which often leads to poor growing conditions and below-average harvests.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: October 2023

Download time series food price data, and build graphs and tables for over 20 different food crops at our food price database webpage: https://www.ifpri.org/project/fresh food-price-analysis-papua-new-guinea Price trends in Q3, 2023 Staple Crops: Sweet potato prices were relatively stable across all markets, with prices ticking upwards at the end of the third quarter in highlands markets. Comparing quarter 2 and 3 average prices on specific commodities, Port Moresby experienced the largest increase in taro price/kg at 76 percent while Banz experienced a 10 percent decrease in cassava price/kg. Vitamin-dense foods: vegetable prices varied across markets in the third quarter of 2023, with some prices decreasing and others increasing. Prices of most vegetables in Port Moresby decreased from August to September, while prices of English cabbage, capsicum, and carrots in Lae increased by 10%. Fresh Fruits: Prices varied across markets in the second and third quarters of 2023. Ripe banana prices increased in Lae and Banz but decreased in Port Moresby, Mt Hagen, and Goroka. Lemon prices increased in all markets except Lae.

Unlocking the power of partnership to address Yemen’s food crisis and strengthen food system resilience

Key Messages • Yemen is experiencing one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises resulting from prolonged conflict, with about half the population suffering from food insecurity. • Food availability and affordability in Yemen is extremely vulnerable to external shocks because of the fragility of the national food system and its heavy dependence on food imports by the private sector and international humanitarian agencies. • A recent workshop jointly organized by IFPRI and HSA Group reviewed the state of collaboration between key actors in Yemen’s food system and discussed avenues to building strong cross-sector partnerships for ending the current food crisis and strengthening food system resilience. • Limited collaboration among the public, private, and third sectors (for example, in the form of collective action, multistakeholder partnerships) contributes to inefficiencies in food supply chains and food aid delivery. • Currently, collaborations are often ad hoc, limited to peer-to-peer partnerships, and constrained by a siloed mentality. • With a potential peace agreement, new opportunities for cross sector collaboration and strategic partnerships between food system actors are emerging. • Enhanced communication among the public, private, and third sectors is an important first step toward improving mutual understanding, building trust, exchanging critical information and ideas, and realizing opportunities for effective collective action.

Crises and women’s access to agricultural information: Insights from India and Nepal during the COVID-19 pandemic

Strict lockdown measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had extensive impacts on agriculture, and especially on women farmers. These effects were worsened by a lack of reliable and timely access to agricultural extension. This note summarizes findings from panel phone surveys conducted in India and Nepal on the impacts of lockdown measures on women’s ability to access agricultural extension services and their perceived impact on agricultural productivity. We find that women’s already limited access to formal extension services was further reduced during the pandemic, leading to greater reliance on informal social networks. In both countries, approximately 50 percent of farmers reported negative consequences on productivity due to the unavailability of information during the lockdown. We propose strategies to enhance the inclusivity and resilience of extension systems in India and Nepal in future crises, including through the use of group- and community-based approaches.

The role of photovoice and cellphilms to support women farmers’ climate-resilience strategies

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can support the collection of agricultural data. While most such data collection efforts have focused on phone surveys, ICT can also facilitate the collection of visual data through photovoice or cellphilms. ICT for visual data has not been widely used nor assessed in the context of agriculture. This note summarizes findings from a qualitative field study on the use of ICT tools for the collection of information on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices by women and men farmers in the central region of Uganda. The findings suggest that these visual research tools can increase insights on women’s perceptions, needs, and strategies for agricultural development and climate resilience.

LDCs, agriculture, and food security

According to the United Nations, least developed countries (LDCs) account for 13 per cent of the world population but only about 1.3 per cent of global GDP and less than 1 per cent of global trade and foreign direct investment . About 40 per cent of the world’s population living in extreme poverty can be found in LDCs. Most are suffering conflict or emerging from one.

From input subsidies to compensating farmers for soil health services

– In many countries in Southern and Eastern Africa, input subsidy programmes are common, often focussing on inorganic fertiliser. These programmes often do not achieve their food security objectives, partly because soil health is in decline as a result of years of application of inorganic fertilisers in the absence of other soil ameliorative measures. – Solutions to soil health decline are well known, and include various combinations of fallowing, crop diversification, intercropping and crop rotations (especially legume rotations), soil organic matter additions, liming and applications of the appropriate inorganic fertilisers. But many of these come with significant socio-economic and technical challenges to farmers. – A way forward is through compensating farmers for soil health services, which will generate a multitude of private and public benefits. This would be a form of Payment for Environmental Services (PES), as supported in the global initiative CompensACTION,1 led by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). – Nine recommendations for implementing a soil health payment scheme are presented, some of which focus on the broader enabling environment. – Development partners can support the implementation of Payments for Soil Heath Services schemes by: assisting countries in establishing pilot schemes for lessons learning; supporting longer term monitoring of soil health changes; supporting government efforts to repurpose subsidy policies; and facilitating public-private partnerships to leverage in private sector investment in activities that will enhance soil health.

Feasibility of implementing a Risk-Contingent Credit (RCC) program in Zambia: Stakeholder engagement

Changes in frequency and intensity of climate and weather events are a key challenge to agricultural production among farmers in Zambia. Climate variability reduces farm productivity, which in turn contributes to household food insecurity, income variability, and reduced overall economic growth. Using improved technologies such as mechanization, improved seed varieties, irrigation, and fertilizer can improve climate resilience and farm production among smallholder farmers. However, in Zambia, as in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, most famers lack sufficient access to credit to purchase these technologies. Limited access to credit is mainly attributed to lack of collateral, fear of losing collateral in case of a default, and low financial literacy among smallholder famers. Information asymmetry also makes it risky and expensive for lenders to serve smallholder farmers, thus they ration the quantity of credit offered and/or raise the interest rates making credit too expensive and inaccessible for millions of smallholder farmers. Bundling agricultural credit with insurance, commonly referred to as risk-contingent credit (RCC), provides a mechanism for addressing some of the credit access constraints faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries. RCC is a loan product that is bundled with an insurance component. RCC seeks to enhance long-term resilience to climate uncertainties by promoting optimal farm investment and productivity among smallholders through sustainable access to credit markets. Under RCC, qualifying smallholder farmers borrow funds for agricultural production from formal financial institutions such as banks and microfinance institutions with minimum collateral requirements. The borrower’s ability to repay the loan is linked to climate outcomes, which are highly correlated with farm productivity. An insurance company underwrites the climate risks (either in the form of drought or flood), such that if that underlying risk passes a certain threshold, the insurance is triggered and part or all of the borrower’s liability is transferred to the insurer. If the underlying risk remains below the threshold, the borrower repays the loan at the agreed upon interest rates and is also obligated to pay the insurance premium, as part of the loan repayment. Linking farmers’ loan repayment obligations to an underlying risk, as opposed to stringent collateral requirements, is expected to reduce the borrowing constraints faced by many poor farmers. At the same time, de-risking the lender by transferring a portion of risks to the insurance market is expected to promote credit supply, hence expanding the rural credit market.

Financial access and digital services within agri-food value chains in Uganda

Agri-food value chains represent an important element of food systems and economies around the world. For example, intermediary agri-food value chain actors—those operating enterprises that transport and transform food from the farmgate to retailers—account for a substantial share, often between 60 and 75 percent, of value-added produced by the entire agricultural sector of an economy.

Enhancing climate resilience in Nigerian agriculture: Implications for sustainable adaptation and livelihood diversification

Key Highlights: Changes in temperature, measured in harmful degree days (HDDs), and precipitation have a significant negative impact on agricultural productivity in Nigeria, which highlights the adverse effects of extreme weather on crop yields. Climate changes affect income sources for farming households. We found that an increase in HDDs reduces households’ income share from crops and nonfarm self-employment, implying threats to household food security for smallholders whose livelihoods depend on subsistence farming and food consumption from own sources. In response to the risks posed by climate change, farmers adopt changes in crop mixes (for example, reducing the share of land allocated to cereals) and input use decisions (for example, reducing fertilizer use and purchased seeds) as an adaptation strategy. Adaption strategies that lead to low use of yield-enhancing modern inputs could worsen agricultural productivity and household food insecurity. However, we found that farmers in Nigeria respond to extreme climate by switching to drought tolerant root or tuber crops. Such strategies could partially offset the adverse effects of climatic shocks on households’ welfare. Climate changes negatively impact agricultural productivity for both poor and non-poor households, but the effects are more pronounced among poorer households, according to our heterogenous effects analysis on household’s initial endowments (based on wealth indicators measured in asset and livestock holdings). This implies low adaptive capacity on the part of poor households and thus their high vulnerability to climate-related shocks. Suggested policy recommendations include interventions to incentivize adoption of climate-resilient agriculture, targeted pro-poor interventions such as low-cost financing options for improving smallholders’ access to climate-proof agricultural inputs and technologies, and policy measures to reduce the inequality of access to livelihood capital, such as land and other productive assets.

CACCI country profile Peru

Peru faces a variety of climate risks just like the rest of the countries in the region. Being a country rich in biodiversity and climatic variety, Peru experiences different climatic impacts, which have been increasing in severity over time. These include increased rainfall, increased periods of drought, and soil degradation, among many other effects. For this reason, Peru has implemented numerous measures to fight against the effects of climate change. These measures focus on sectors vital to the development of the country, along with industries and services that are most directly affected by climate change. Actions have utilized international and national instruments strengthened for the current climate crisis, always taking into consideration all parts of the system by carrying out inter-institutional and multilevel interventions.