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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

Erick Boy

researcher spotlight

Erick Boy

Erick Boy is the Chief Nutritionist in the HarvestPlus section of the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. As head of nutrition for the HarvestPlus Program since 2008, he has led research that has generated scientific evidence on biofortified staple crops as efficacious and effective interventions to help address iron, vitamin A, and zinc deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Francisco Ceballos

Research Fellow

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Bio

Francisco Ceballos is a Research Fellow in IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit. As a development economist specialized in agricultural risk management, resilience, and nutrition, his professional interests include the design, development, and evaluation of innovative agricultural risk management projects, strategies for improving sustainable nutrition in resource-poor environments, and the use of digital technologies for development. He co-leads the research program on picture-based crop insurance, which relies on smartphone pictures of crop fields taken by farmers to assess crop damage and provide complementary value-added services. He has over 20 years of research experience and has worked on projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. His work has been published in leading international journals and specialized books. Dr. Ceballos holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Göttingen in Germany.

Publications

Google Scholar Citations

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Publications

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Book Chapter

Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk

2025Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Kramer, Berber
Details

Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk

Farm households face many market and production risks to their livelihoods, food security, and economic well-being. Agricultural insurance is intended to help protect households from risk, but many agricultural risks are difficult to insure against and demand for insurance products remains low. This chapter examines how policy-oriented research has encouraged public investment, facilitated farmer use, and improved farmer welfare, and explores how new technologies and approaches are creating opportunities for increasing coverage. Book link: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174108

Year published

2025

Authors

Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Kramer, Berber

Citation

Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; and Kramer, Berber. 2025. Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk. In Global food policy report 2025: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world, eds. Johan Swinnen and Christopher Barrett. Part Three: Supporting Farmers, Chapter 10, Pp. 245-264. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174303

Keywords

Insurance; Agricultural Insurance; Risk Reduction; Farmers; Economic Policies; Crop Insurance; Weather Index Insurance; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Working Paper

Business aspects along the rural-urban continuum, outlet type, and gender of ownership among MSMEs in the Vietnamese food environment

2025Ceballos, Francisco; Aguilar, Francisco; de Brauw, Alan; Nguyen, Trang; van den Berg, Marrit
Details

Business aspects along the rural-urban continuum, outlet type, and gender of ownership among MSMEs in the Vietnamese food environment

Concurrent with its rapid economic growth, Viet Nam has been experiencing a food systems transformation. Broad changes in the food environment have been a key part of this transition. While the availability of processed food is ubiquitous, the food environment continues to be largely dominated by micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). So, to build strategies to improve the availability and affordability of healthy foods, MSMEs are a key entry point. In this paper, we use primary survey data to separate key sources of variation in MSMEs’ organizational dimensions and business practices by type of outlet, rural-urban location, and gender of the owners. We focus on outcomes related to employment, food sources, business finance, good business practices, and nutrition knowledge and attitudes. We find limited differences in this set of outcomes in terms of whether an outlet is located in a rural, peri-urban, or urban area, or in terms of the gender of its owners. Instead, most of the variation in outcomes can be linked to the type of outlet, raising specific types of outlets as a key focus when seeking to foster the supply of healthier foods in the food environment.

Year published

2025

Authors

Ceballos, Francisco; Aguilar, Francisco; de Brauw, Alan; Nguyen, Trang; van den Berg, Marrit

Citation

Ceballos, Francisco; Aguilar, Francisco; de Brauw, Alan; Nguyen, Trang; and van den Berg, Marrit. 2025. Business aspects along the rural-urban continuum, outlet type, and gender of ownership among MSMEs in the Vietnamese food environment. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2333. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174099

Country/Region

Vietnam

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Enterprises; Food Environment; Food Systems; Gender

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Impacts of personalized picture-based crop advisories: Experimental evidence from India and Kenya

2024Ceballos, Francisco; Chugh, Aditi; Kramer, Berber
Details

Impacts of personalized picture-based crop advisories: Experimental evidence from India and Kenya

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has heightened interest in digital models to strengthen agricultural extension. Such tools could help provide personalized advisories tailored to a farmer’s unique conditions at scale and at a low cost. This study evaluates the fundamental assumption that personalized crop advisories are more effective than generic ones. By means of a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT), we assess the impact of personalized picture-based advisories on farmers’ perceptions, knowledge and adoption of recommended inputs and practices, and other downstream outcomes. We find that personalizing advisories does not significantly improve agricultural outcomes compared to generic ones. While farmers who engage relatively more with advisories (i.e., those who receive and read a substantial number of messages based on self-reports) tend to achieve better outcomes, this is irrespective of whether the advisories they receive are tailored to their specific situation or not. We conclude that investments in digital extension tools should aim to enhance engagement with advisories rather than focusing solely on personalization.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ceballos, Francisco; Chugh, Aditi; Kramer, Berber

Citation

Ceballos, Francisco; Chugh, Aditi; and Kramer, Berber. 2024. Impacts of personalized picture-based crop advisories: Experimental evidence from India and Kenya. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2322. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/169348

Country/Region

India; Kenya

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Eastern Africa; Agricultural Extension; Artificial Intelligence; Farmers; Inputs

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Diversification in East and Southern Africa

Record type

Working Paper

Events

30th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE)
IFPRI at External Event

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July 28 to August 2, 2018

30th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE)

IFPRI is participating extensively in the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) 30th Conference of Agricultural Economists. The (IAAE) is a worldwide association of agricultural economists and others concerned with agricultural economic problems, including problems related to the use of renewable resources and the environment. Its broad goal is to make a difference through the following: IFPRI Participants: Pre-Conference Workshops  […]

Food Industries for People and Planet
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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June 26, 2018, 9:00 – 5:30 pm

Food Industries for People and Planet

The International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) new research program on “Food industries for people and planet” (FIPP) will expand traditional ways of thinking about the global food system and will provide evidence-based policy assessments aimed at making agri-food industries and food systems more inclusive in terms of employment and income opportunities, more efficient in […]

2018 International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research Conference (ICABR)
IFPRI at External Event

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June 12 to 15, 2018

2018 International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research Conference (ICABR)

IFPRI is participating extensively in the International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR) conference. Multiple changes in the structure of the food system and agriculture raise new opportunities and challenges for the agricultural sector.  In the developing world, these changes started in Asia and Latin America, and are rapidly emerging in Africa.  Urbanization and increased urban […]

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News

July 16, 2019 | In the News

Making crop insurance work for Indian farmers

Live Mint published an overview article on crop insurance. The article highlighted an IFPRI study that demonstrates how to capitalize on the availability of low-cost internet and the rising use of smartphones. The novel picture-based insurance (PBI) product welds technology with weather index-based insurance (WBI).

July 24, 2018 | In the News

Photo-based crop insurance could debut in Kenya in 2019 (SciDev)

The Science Development Network reported on developments in crop insurance.

Research

Projects

Topics/Countries

Awards

  • 2017 Ernst Meyer Prize of The Geneva Association for his doctoral thesis on “Demand and Design Considerations for Smallholder Farmers’ Weather Index Insurance Products.”