IFPRI South Asia Regional Office


Book Description

The IFPRI South Asia Office (SAO) in New Delhi engages in evidence-based policy research and capacity-building activities related to food and nutrition security in the region. This research focuses on agricultural diversification, climate change, markets and trade, nutrition and health, science and technology, and governance.




COVID-19 and global food security: Two years later


Book Description

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.




An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia?


Book Description

Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.




IFPRI


Book Description

The International Food Policy Research Institute's (IFPRI) South Asia Initiative website contains information on its projects and programs. The Initiative focuses upon formation of the Policy Analysis and Advisory Network for South Asia (PAANSA) to create synergy among agricultural policymakers, advisors, and analysts in South Asia for more effective policy dialogue; applied research on critical policy issues facing the food, agriculture, and natural resource sectors of the region; and strengthening local capacity to carry out applied policy research through collaborative research, training and exchange programs with local institutions, NGOs, and the private sector. The website contains information on these three action strategies and bibliography of IFPRI publications and research papers, some of which are downloadable files (.pdf).




Agricultural development: New perspectives in a changing world


Book Description

Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World is the first comprehensive exploration of key emerging issues facing developing-country agriculture today, from rapid urbanization to rural transformation to climate change. In this four-part volume, top experts offer the latest research in the field of agricultural development. Using new lenses to examine today’s biggest challenges, contributors address topics such as nutrition and health, gender and household decision-making, agrifood value chains, natural resource management, and political economy. The book also covers most developing regions, providing a critical global perspective at a time when many pressing challenges extend beyond national borders. Tying all this together, Agricultural Development explores policy options and strategies for developing sustainable agriculture and reducing food insecurity and malnutrition. The changing global landscape combined with new and better data, technologies, and understanding means that agriculture can and must contribute to a wider range of development outcomes than ever before, including reducing poverty, ensuring adequate nutrition, creating strong food value chains, improving environmental sustainability, and promoting gender equity and equality. Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World, with its unprecedented breadth and scope, will be an indispensable resource for the next generation of policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving agriculture for global wellbeing.




2020 Global food policy report: Building inclusive food systems


Book Description

Food systems are at a critical juncture—they are evolving quickly to meet growing and changing demand but are not serving everyone’s needs. Building more inclusive food systems can bring a wide range of economic and development benefits to all people, especially the poor and disadvantaged. IFPRI’s 2020 Global Food Policy Report examines the policies and investments and the growing range of tools and technologies that can promote inclusion. Chapters examine the imperative of inclusion, challenges faced by smallholders, youth, women, and conflict-affected people, and the opportunities offered by expanding agrifood value chains and national food system transformations. Critical questions addressed include: How can inclusive food systems help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and malnutrition? \What can be done to strengthen the midstream of food value chains to improve rural access to jobs, markets, and services? Will Africa’s food systems generate sufficient jobs for the growing youth population? How can women be empowered within food system processes, from household decisions to policymaking? Can refugees and other conflict-affected people be integrated into food systems to help them rebuild their lives? How can national food system transformations contribute to greater dietary diversity, food safety, and food quality for all? Regional sections look at how inclusion can be improved around the world in 2020 and beyond. The report also presents interesting trends revealed by IFPRI’s food policy indicators and datasets.




Agricultural Transformation in Nepal


Book Description

This book addresses some key strategic questions related to agriculture in the context of major contemporary developments and emerging challenges in Nepal such as the changing role of agriculture with economic growth, structural transformation in reducing poverty, improving nutritional outcomes, and addressing the challenges of climate change. The book also suggests policy measures to improve the delivery of critical inputs and services and ensure the participation of marginal and smallholders in high-value chains. Further, it discusses how the new federal system and governance structure will affect the delivery of agricultural technology and services. The book is divided into five parts. Part I discusses macro-issues in the agriculture sector, while Part II focuses on agricultural productivity growth and its main drivers. The third part explores diversification in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors by farmers and other rural people for livelihood improvement, while the fourth part deals with agricultural trade and marketing issues, highlighting policy implications and recommendations in the areas of immediate focus and further research. Lastly, Part V addresses institutions and governance issues, which are vital for agricultural development. In the final chapter, the editors summarize and synthesize the book’s main findings and develop a policy agenda for addressing the many challenges faced by the agriculture sector in Nepal, so as to make it more productive, competitive, sustainable, and inclusive. The book offers a rich source of analytical information on various aspects of agricultural development in Nepal and will be of immense value to policymakers, development partners, civil society, students, and those interested in the economic and agricultural development of not only Nepal, but also other developing countries.




The impact of India’s farm science centers (Krishi Vigyan Kendras) on farm households’ economic welfare: Evidence from a national farmers survey


Book Description

The paper examines the impact of access to India’s farm science centers (Krishi Vigyan Kendras, or KVKs) on agricultural households’ welfare using household-level data from the nationally representative Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households conducted by India’s National Sample Survey Office in 2013. Employing different matching techniques and endogenous switching regression models, we find that the KVKs have a positive and statistically significant impact on agricultural households’ economic welfare, although that impact is heterogeneous. Further, the investments made in expansion of India’s network of KVKs have been quite remunerative, as the benefit-to-cost ratio of expenditure on KVKs ranges from 8 to 12. Moreover, our findings suggest that expanding rural formal credit markets and promoting literacy can maximize the potential impact of KVKs on agricultural households’ economic welfare.




IFPRI in Asia


Book Description

Highlights of IFPRI’s current cutting-edge, policy-relevant research in Central, East, South, and Southeast Asia are featured in this brochure. IFPRI works with partners throughout Asia to contribute to effective policies, programs, and investments that help ensure all people have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably grown food across the continent.




Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition


Book Description

Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider women’s empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, women’s empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of women’s empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventions—cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs—on women’s empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on women’s empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on women’s empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventions—specifically home gardening and dairy projects—show mixed impacts on women’s empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on women’s empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on women’s empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.