IFPRI Research Monographs

IFPRI has long argued that spending on agricultural research constitutes a sound investment in poverty reduction and agricultural and economic growth, through improvements in productivity. This argument is based partly on the reported evidence of ...

Poor rural households in developing countries lack adequate access to credit. Many development professionals believe that this lack of credit has negative consequences for poor people’s agricultural productivity, food security, health, and ...

Despite the importance of tropical moist forests for conserving biodiversity and storing carbon, forests continue to fall, because the private benefits of clearing land for agriculture far outweigh tangible economic gains from retaining forests. ...

This study analyzes the evolution of agricultural policies from 1985 to 2002 in India, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam and provides empirical estimates of the degree of protection or disprotection to agriculture in these four countries, both by key ...

India’s investments in agricultural research, extension, and irrigation have made it one of the largest publicly funded systems in the world. But some policymakers who perceive that the benefits to research may be declining are advocating a ...

This research report highlights findings from a set of studies undertaken by applied economists on the impact of improved banana cultivars and recommended management practices in the East African highlands. A particular focus of the analysis is ...

Since the 1970s, federal policies promoting migration and encouraging agricultural development of large farms, logging, and ranching have led to the deforestation of vast areas of the Amazon rainforest.Though these policies have largely been ...

In this report, the authors examine the effects on agricultural incentives in Colombia of two influential economic forces: the coffee boom in the 1970s and rapidly expanding public sectors. In Colombia, the turbulence in trade and exchange rate ...

Bangladesh has some social safety net programs that transfer food to the poor, some that transfer cash, and some that provide a combination of both. This study evaluates the relative impacts of food and cash transfers on food security and ...

Rural producer organizations, such as farmers’ organizations or rural cooperatives, offer a means for smallholder farmers in developing countries to sell their crops commercially. They hold particular promise for Sub-Saharan Africa, where ...

The rapid growth in consumer demand for livestock offers an opportunity to reduce poverty among smallholder livestock farmers in the developing world. These farmers’ opportunity may be threatened, however, by competition from larger-scale ...

Sudan is one of the few countries where famine still persists. Why? What are the determinants of famine in Sudan? What is the role of drought, especially in the context of economic policy failure and war? Who is affected by famine? What needs to ...

Policy reforms in the wake of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are expected to reduce food exports in Western Europe. Will the transition to market- oriented policy regimes in Eastern Europe and the former ...

Research has shown that women, when given the capital and opportunity, make unique, positive contributions to development outcomes ranging from agricultural productivity to poverty reduction. It comes as little surprise, then, that agricultural ...

During the period of Nepal's ninth Five-Year Plan (1997–2002), agricultural growth in the predominantly rural society was disappointing. The recent peace process, however, gives the country new opportunities to develop its economy with less ...

“Following Mozambique’s economic collapse in 1986, the country began a wide-ranging process of reform, with the support of the international community. The diagnosis was of an economy that failed to maintain monetary control, consumed ...

The confluence of droughts and high world grain prices in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the Sahel produced widespread famine, resulting in extensive and displacement of people. The region is extremely poor in normal times and the drought was ...

Since its earliest years IFPRI has conducted research on food subsidies, concentrating on methods to achieve the social objectives of subsidies without undue distortion of the economy or excessive economic and political costs. Studies have been ...

The community-driven development (CDD) approach has become increasingly popular because of its potential to develop projects that are sustainable, are responsive to local priorities, empower communities, and more effectively target poor and ...

Table of Contents: Tables, Figures, Foreword, Acknowledgments, and Summary; 1. Introduction; 2. Determinants of the Placement and Outreach of Group-Based Financial Institutions:A County-Level Analysis; 3. Group-Based Financial ...

In the past two decades, China has achieved world renown for reducing rural poverty. However, it is becoming harder to reduce poverty and inequality further in China, even though its economy continues to grow. This report compares the impact ...

The end of the apartheid system in South Africa in 1994 brought with it the end of legally sanctioned racial segregation in schools. In practice, however, racial disparities in educational attainment continue, with white and Asian students ...

In 2000, the Nicaraguan government implemented a conditional cash transfer program designed to improve the nutritional, health, and educational status of poor households, and thereby to reduce short- and long-term poverty. Based on the Mexican ...

Undernutrition remains a major source of human suffering and an obstacle to national economic and human development in many African countries. This report investigates undernutrition’s persistence, drawing on case studies of the public ...

This research report examines three questions that are central to IFPRI research: How do property-rights institutions affect efficiency and equity? How are resources allocated within households? Why does this matter from a policy perspective? As ...

Agriculture is vital to the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa: two-thirds of the region’s people depend on it for their livelihoods. Nevertheless, agricultural productivity in most of the region is stagnant or declining, in large part because ...

“This report investigates the income and equity effects of macroeconomic policy reforms in Zimbabwe, emphasizing linkages between macroeconomic policies and agricultural performance and agriculture’s influence on aggregate income and ...

Using a New Institutional Economics framework, this research report addresses a fundamental aspect of markets: how do buyers and sellers find each other and coordinate the transfer of goods? The report quantifies the transaction costs related to ...

Barbier and Bergeron explore several hypotheses about the dynamics of natural resource management in the hillsides of La Lima and further explore the causes and consequences of the transition to vegetable production. To fully integrate ...

The Philippines has undergone a series of trade reforms since the mid-1980s that have reduced protection on nonagricultural goods. However, protection on key food items is still in effect, and this has led to high domestic food prices. Such high ...

In many developing countries the government has divided the grain market into two sectors: an open market and a government-run, concessional food supply system. The concessional system is a necessity where mass poverty exists; it makes it ...

This study uses a relatively new method called “small area estimation” to estimate various measures of poverty and inequality for provinces, districts, and communes of Vietnam. The method was applied by combining information from the ...

Through a study of seven public works programs implemented in Western Cape province, this report examines the benefits and challenges of pursuing community participation, together with the effects of participation on meeting the other objectives ...

This document synthesizes the findings contained in a series of reports prepared by IFPRI for PROGRESA between November 1998 and November 2000… PROGRESA is one of the major programs of the Mexican government aimed at developing the human ...

“Rather than looking at the association between poverty and various household and individual characteristics on a one-to-one basis (bivariate analysis), which often oversimplifies complex relationships and can lead to erroneous conclusions, ...

The dramatic surge in food prices from 2005 to 2008 seriously threatened the world’s poor, who struggle to buy food even under normal circumstances, and led to protests and riots in the developing world. The crisis eventually receded, but such ...

In Regional Trading Arrangements among Developing Countries: The ASEAN Example, Research Report 103, Dean A. DeRosa examines the experiences of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with regional investment and trade arrangements and ...

The success of modern technology in increasing yields on high-potential lands has been so great that researchers and policymakers alike have been quick to use modern inputs on marginal lands as well. But the results of applying Green Revolution ...

North Arcot, a rural district of Tamil Nadu, India, has been the site of extensive research on whether economic growth induced by the introduction of the green revolution has widened inequities between the well-to-do and the poor. Data indicate ...

Marked seasonal variability of both production- and consumption is characteristic of virtually all farming systems in the developing world. This study examines the magnitude and significance of seasonal undernutrition in south central Ethiopia, ...

Why do some people receive higher incomes than others with similar talents and abilities? And why do certain sources of income, such as income from farm labor and income from growing sugarcane, go to different people? What steps can be taken to ...

Agricultural development strategies delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. They are usually put forward by individual countries based on assessments of national needs. Seldom are attempts made to ...

Since 1986, Tanzania, like many other countries, has experienced a remarkable political and economic transition. Formerly a one-party state with a planned economy, the country is now multiparty democracy with a market-oriented economy and has ...

During the past decade and a half, Ethiopia’s approach to promoting development and improving the lives of the country’s rural population has been driven by a government strategy called Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization ...

Bangladesh, which has been a country of chronic food deficits, now appears to be nearing self-sufficiency in rice. Production of rice, the major food staple of the country, grew at a rate of 2.7 percent in the 1980s, while population grew at a ...

Food subsidies affect various sectors of the Egyptian economy, but theirinfluence on agriculture, which employs a considerable share of the na-tion’s resources, seems particularlystrong (vonBraun and de Haen, 1983).A major objective of this ...

Western Kenya is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa. Farming there is characterized by low inputs and low crop productivity. Poverty is rampant in the region. Yet the potential for agriculture is considered good. In the study ...

“Malnutrition affects one out of every three preschool-age children living in developing countries.This disturbing, yet preventable, state of affairs causes untold suffering and, given its wide scale, presents a major obstacle to the ...

Agricultural policy reform is one of the major challenges facing India today. Such reform is required in order to reduce poverty through faster agricultural growth and to promote more sustainable use of natural resources while ensuring food ...

Agricultural exports, which have traditionally been the mainstay of African economies, have weakened since the 1970s, giving rise to pessimism among policymakers about the prospects for long-term development of overseas export markets. As a ...

Accra offers a compelling case study of the contemporary impact of urban life on the livelihoods, food security, and nutritional status of its people. The Accra Urban Food and Nutrition Study was a collaborative effort between IFPRI, the Noguchi ...

Many developing countries are in transition from a state-dominated to a more market-oriented economy. Because agriculture is of primary importance in most developing countries,the state is usually heavily involved in both input and output markets ...