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The path forward on global food system transformation
True food system transformation will have to go beyond the agricultural policy reforms enacted during the past 50 years. We need to ensure that food systems elevate and prioritize health, inclusion, sustainability, resilience, climate, and the environment.
Existing global and national commitments, in terms of policies and financial investments, are not sufficient to guide the change required. How do we make the right kind of change happen, and help food systems function for the benefit of all people, and the environment?
Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi, Johan Swinnen, and Tamsin Zandstra discuss a new report, The Economics of the Food System Transformation, released by the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC), which addresses this question and more. (Read Blog)
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 Navigating Sudan’s Conflict: Research Insights and Policy Implications
Conference | March 5, 2024, 8:00AM to 6:00PM EAT / 12:00AM TO 10:00AM EST
2023 Global Food 50/50 Launch Event
Policy Seminar | March 7, 2024, 9:00AM to 10:30AM EST
CGIAR Science Week
Event | July 1-5, 2024
Please check our Events page for most recent updates.
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Estimating seed demand in the presence of market frictions: Improved cassava varieties could increase yield by up to 60% in Nigeria, but demand remains low, perhaps due to missing information about quality. David Spielman et al. measure the effect of seed quality misperceptions on bidding behavior and demand for high-quality seed. (Read article in the Journal of Development Economics)
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Titling and joint property rights in Myanmar: Joint property rights are often considered desirable over sole rights, particularly if the latter are strongly biased toward rights for men. Isabel Lambrecht et al. discuss a general theoretical framework of determinants of property rights with a focus on jointness and the interplay between statutory law and institutions on the one hand, and customs, norms, and perceptions on the other hand. (Read article in Land Use Policy)
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Preventing and controlling zinc deficiency across the life course: Zinc supports a greater number of critical life functions than any other single micronutrient. Zinc deficiency is also one of the most common forms of micronutrient malnutrition globally. This article co-authored by Jennifer Foley and Erick Boy covers recent developments in our understanding of zinc’s role in health, the impact of the changing climate and global context on zinc intake, and solutions for improving population-level zinc intake. (Read article in Advances in Nutrition)
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Dietary predictors of urinary biomarkers of pyrethroids in the general population: Pyrethroid pesticides are ubiquitous environmental contaminants, contributing to potentially harmful exposure among the general population. Although studies have measured pesticide residues on agricultural products, the link between food intake and concentrations of pyrethroid biomarkers in urine remains unclear. Nadia Koyratty et al. analyzed peer-reviewed publications investigating dietary predictors of pyrethroid exposure through urinary biomarkers. (Read article in The Journal of Nutrition)
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Water-energy-food planning and operations framework for river basins: Infrastructure in river basins is essential to achieving several Sustainable Development Goals, including SDGs 2, 6, and 7. However, important trade-offs and synergies need to be navigated across these goals as both water and resources for infrastructure investments are limited. A new paper co-authored by Khalid Siddig and Claudia Ringler identifies efficient operation plans for large dams on the Blue Nile for alternative cropping patterns in expanded irrigation areas in Sudan that minimize trade-offs across water, energy, and food objectives. (Read article in the Journal of Hydrology)
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IFPRI and The Rockefeller Foundation hosted a seminar on February 6, 2024, to shed light on global commitments toward promoting food security and healthy diets, share research results on the potential of current commitments to achieve a focused set of food and nutrition security goals, and foster continued dialogue with global advocacy partners. (Watch Recording)
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On February 22, 2024, IFPRI hosted an online seminar to present the new Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS), review the development of the tool, and discuss its use to advance women’s empowerment. (Watch Recording)
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In a series of case studies, IFPRI and its research partners have studied the pace and pattern of agricultural transformation within USAID’s Feed-the-Future countries. This Agrilinks webinar with IFPRI's James Thurlow, Valeria Pineiro, and Kwaw Andam discussed the top lessons that emerged from this analysis. (Watch Recording)
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IFPRI, CGIAR, and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) co-organized a seminar on February 29, 2024, to highlight key IFPRI findings on the potential to repurpose existing agriculture policies and public support to accelerate the transformation of food systems to become more inclusive, resilient, sustainable, and healthy. (Watch Recording)
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India’s export restrictions on rice continue to disrupt global markets, supplies, and prices: Six months after India introduced a set of export restrictions on rice with the aim of holding down domestic prices, global rice markets continue to feel the impact. This has put importing countries in South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in a bind, forcing them to seek alternative sources even as other major rice-exporting countries including Viet Nam and Thailand face production losses due to the effects of El Niño. Joseph Glauber and Abdullah Mamun discuss the impact of weather and India’s export restrictions on global rice markets—in particular, markets in sub-Saharan Africa. (Read Blog)
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Ukraine and global agricultural markets two years later: Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the war continues to disrupt agricultural production and trade in Ukraine—one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters—and poses an ongoing threat to global food security. Joseph Glauber discusses how global commodity markets have adjusted to these disruptions, in part to due to increased exports by other suppliers, including Russia, easing the initial shock. ( Read Blog)
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Rising food prices are putting children in harm’s way: The real price of food has risen dramatically in 21st century, with the FAO food price index peaking at an all-time high in March 2022 at 116% above its 2000 value. Derek Headey and Marie Ruel share new evidence on malnutrition risks among 1.27 million children from 44 low- and middle-income countries that quantifies the significant negative health effects caused by rising food prices. (Read Blog)
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ANEW way forward: What are the optimal ways to challenge gender norms and foster women’s empowerment while increasing smallholder incomes? Engaging with agricultural collectives is one promising approach for addressing these challenges. Four organizations working with agricultural collectives partnered with IFPRI under the Applying New Evidence for Women’s Empowerment (ANEW) portfolio, supported by a grant from Walmart Foundation. Jessica Heckert, Kalyani Raghunathan, Agnes Quisumbing, Emma Fawcett, Emily Myers, Flor Paz, and Soumyajit Ray write about the ANEW portfolio end-of-project meeting. (Read Blog)
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'C’est la Vie!': An impact evaluation of a Senegalese edutainment series to influence gender and violence outcomes: Malick Dione, Jessica Heckert, Melissa Hidrobo, Agnes Le Port, Amber Peterman, and Moustapha Seye conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of a popular West African television series C’est la Vie! designed around gender and women’s health and rights themes. This blog post summarizes takeaway findings, challenges, and where the research agenda on gender and edutainment is headed next. (Read Blog)
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Women and girls in science: Interview with IFPRI’s Claudia Ringler: The International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11) is a reminder that “women and girls play a critical role in science and technology communities and that their participation should be strengthened.” To mark the Day this year, we spoke with Claudia Ringler, Director of IFPRI’s Natural Resources and Resilience Unit, about her journey in science leadership, the challenges she faced, and what helped her to overcome them. (Read Blog)
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Widespread damage to agriculture is severely constraining food supplies in the Gaza Strip. Before the conflict, about 44% of household food consumption came from domestic producers, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), while the remaining 56% came from imports of agricultural commodities, which have stopped due to the conflict. Reduced domestic food supplies and the loss of import capacity, along with rising costs of transportation, energy, and water, have caused rampant food price inflation. The price of wheat flour, for instance, increased more than tenfold and the average price for vegetables almost fourfold between October 2023 and January 2024, according to recent PCBS estimates.
To learn more, read our recent issue post "Long-lasting devastation to livelihoods from damage to agricultural lands in Gaza" by Rob Vos and Soonho Kim.
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BBC World Business Report: Food Supplies Under Pressure: BBC Radio interviewed IFPRI Director General Johan Swinnen on recent farmer protests around the world. “There are a number of structural factors affecting farmers. When incomes grow, it’s the rural areas that aren’t growing as fast. People feel that they are being left behind. There is a continuing squeezing of their livelihood,” he said. “A food systems transformation is essential. Climatse change adds to the pressure that farmers are already feeling.”
‘We have reached the end of our rope.’ Why farmers around the world are protesting: PBS News Hour interviewed Danielle Resnick for a news story discussing farmer protests in the EU and India. “There’s a sense of a rupture in the social contract between farmers and their governments,” Resnick said. “In the EU it’s a sense that farmers are being forced to unfairly bear the burden of a lot of the EU regulations to meet climate emissions. In India, the sense that farmers are overburdened. They’re worried about various shocks, including climate shocks, and they want some type of social protection.”
What's driving the farmer protests sweeping Europe? CNN spoke with Danielle Resnick on the drivers of recent protests and why are they happening now. “I think these protests really reflect some complex political economy dynamics that are happening, especially as European Union governments are trying to navigate both a fiscal and climate crisis,” Resnick said.
At COP 28, countries pledged to transform their food systems. Now what? Devex interviewed Purnima Menon on the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action. “I think from the perspective of shaping an effective discourse, the UAE declaration is very powerful," Menon said.
The impact of India’s rice export restrictions on global markets, supplies, and prices: The Business Standard (Bangladesh) published an op-ed by Joseph Glauber and Abdullah Mamun on the impact of export restrictions and El Niño on global rice markets. “Rice-importing countries in sub-Saharan Africa have felt the greatest impacts, scrambling to find alternative sources, even as global rice prices have risen more than 20% since India imposed its restrictions,” they wrote.
Do ultra-poor graduation programmes build resilience against droughts? Evidence from rural Ethiopia VoxDev published an article by Kalle Hirvonen, Daniel Gilligan, Jessica Leight, Heleene Tambet, and Victor Villa (CGIAR) discussing their recent paper that provides new evidence around the effects of a graduation model intervention in increasing resilience against localized droughts in rural Ethiopia.
El Niño: Malawi’s harvest of maize—its staple food—may fall by 22.5% this year: Ghana Times re-published this recent article by IFPRI’s Joachim De Weerdt, Channing Arndt, James Thurlow, Jan Duchoslav, Joseph Glauber, Liangzhi You, and Weston Anderson (U. of Maryland) looking at possible weather pattern changes driven by El Niño and their impact on maize production in Malawi, and proposing some urgent steps Malawi’s farmers and the government should take. (Originally published in The Conversation)
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