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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

David Spielman

David Spielman is the director of IFPRI’s Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit and has been with the institute since 2004. His research agenda covers a range of topics including agriculture and rural development policy; agricultural science, technology, and innovation; plant genetic resources and seed systems; agricultural extension and advisory services; and community-driven rural development.

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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 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Ruth Hill

Director, Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Bio

Ruth Hill is the Director of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit in the Food and Nutrition Policy Department. She was previously a Lead Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank, where she spent a decade leading work on the distributional impacts of climate change, fiscal policy, markets, and institutions. She also led the development of the World Bank’s Rural Income Diagnostics and conducted Poverty Assessments and Systematic Country Diagnostics in East Africa and South Asia. From 2019 to 2021, she was on external service as the Chief Economist at the UK government’s Centre for Disaster Protection. Before joining the World Bank in 2013, Ruth was a Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI, conducting impact evaluations on insurance and market interventions. She has published in the Journal of Development Economics, World Bank Economic Review, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Experimental Economics, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and World Development. She holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford.

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Publications

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Working Paper

Targeting of beneficiaries in chemical fertilizer subsidy programs: State of knowledge and evidence gaps

2025Trachtman, Carly; Hill, Ruth Vargas
Details

Targeting of beneficiaries in chemical fertilizer subsidy programs: State of knowledge and evidence gaps

Low and middle income countries have been facing mounting pressure from lenders and donors to eliminate or reform fertilizer subsidy programs, which can have distortionary market effects and negative environmental externalities. However, there is little systematic work understanding who these programs currently benefit both in theory and in practice, and hence who may be affected by policy reform. In this paper, we identify low and middle countries with active fertilizer subsidy programs, and characterize the targeting regime of each program based on both explicit and implicit criteria determining eligibility. Then in a selection of case studies, we explore which individuals are receiving subsidy benefits in practice. We find that while many fertilizer subsidy programs are meant to be universal, there are are additional implicit targeting criteria and/or informal targeting induced by supply shortfalls in many countries. Further, we find evidence that regardless of targeting regime, fertilizer subsidies are generally progressive, though this seems to be driven by the fact that the poor are often concentrated in the agricultural sector.

Year published

2025

Authors

Trachtman, Carly; Hill, Ruth Vargas

Citation

Trachtman, Carly; Hill, Ruth. 2025. Targeting of beneficiaries in chemical fertilizer subsidy programs: State of knowledge and evidence gaps. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178957

Keywords

Fertilizers; Inorganic Fertilizers; Subsidies; Targeting

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Brief

Realistic options for repurposing fertilizer subsidy spending

2025Hill, Ruth Vargas; Resnick, Danielle
Details

Realistic options for repurposing fertilizer subsidy spending

Worldwide, government spending on subsidies in agriculture, fishing, and fossil fuels amounts to a staggering $1.25 trillion annually. Subsidies play a significant role in every country’s fiscal policies, regardless of income level or spending patterns. Spending on energy and agricultural subsidies consistently accounts for 2%-3% of GDP on average across income levels and make the production and transportation of food cheaper. Spending on these subsidies is coming under increasing scrutiny as governments struggle to mobilize additional revenue to meet important development targets amid rising debt distress, dwindling aid resources, and citizen protests against unpopular tax increases. One solution proposed by a growing consensus of voices is to repurpose expensive subsidies towards expenditures that generate higher development benefits. While these subsidies aim to address low agricultural productivity, high food prices, and other critical challenges, their continuing predominance in food system investments raises important questions: Is this an effective way to spend public funds on such a large scale? If not, can some of the money currently going to subsidies be used to finance other needed investments (that may in turn make subsidies themselves more effective) and if yes, what type of investments can they fund? This note explores these questions, focusing specifically on fertilizer subsidies, a major source of government support for farmers, especially in low-income countries, where they comprise a quarter of all subsidy spending (as well as one-tenth of such spending on in high income countries).

Year published

2025

Authors

Hill, Ruth Vargas; Resnick, Danielle

Citation

Hill, Ruth Vargas; and Resnick, Danielle. 2025. Realistic options for repurposing fertilizer subsidy spending. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178861

Keywords

Fertilizers; Prices; Subsidies

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Opinion Piece

Smartphones, women’s rights and coupons: New trends that can boost insurance for African farmers

2025Kramer, Berber; Hill, Ruth Vargas
Details

Smartphones, women’s rights and coupons: New trends that can boost insurance for African farmers

This piece on “The Conversation” highlights how emerging innovations in technology, product design and gender inclusion can expand access to agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers across Africa. As climate change intensifies droughts, floods and other weather extremes, smallholders remain highly exposed, yet traditional insurance models have struggled to reach them due to high costs, limited trust and administrative challenges. The authors discuss how smartphone-based photo verification can simplify loss assessment, how insurance “coupons” can make premiums more affordable at the point of purchase, and how strengthening women’s rights and decision-making power can increase both uptake and the equitable distribution of benefits. They also underscore the value of complementing formal insurance with existing informal risk-sharing networks. Together, these innovations can lower barriers to participation, reduce basis risk, and create more inclusive insurance markets, which will help scale climate-risk protection across the continent.

Year published

2025

Authors

Kramer, Berber; Hill, Ruth Vargas

Citation

Kramer, Berber; and Hill, Ruth Vargas. 2025. Smartphones, women’s rights and coupons: New trends that can boost insurance for African farmers. The Conversation. Published on November 11, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAJ.6wkxs9tng

Keywords

Crop Insurance; Climate Resilience; Policies; Agriculture; Risk Transfer; Extreme Weather Events; Livelihoods; Food Security; Mobile Phones

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.64628/aaj.6wkxs9tng Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece

Blogs

Scaling up crop insurance in Africa for climate resilience and agricultural transformation
Issue Post
 | 
March 10, 2026

Scaling up crop insurance in Africa for climate resilience and agricultural transformation

By Ruth Hill and Berber Kramer

Advantages of risk management for smallholders.

Realistic options for repurposing fertilizer subsidy spending
Issue Post
 | 
August 11, 2025

Realistic options for repurposing fertilizer subsidy spending

By Ruth Hill and Danielle Resnick

Reassessing a major target of public investment.

Events

Agricultural Insurance: Innovations, Policies, and Pathways to Scale
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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April 16, 2026, 11:00 – 12:30 pm

Agricultural Insurance: Innovations, Policies, and Pathways to Scale

Also streaming on Please type your questions into the chat box with name, affiliation, and country. The event video, presenter slides, and podcast will be available in the days following the event. Farm households face numerous risks that can discourage investments and trap them in poverty. Insurance should be a useful tool to reduce these […]

Reducing Food Loss and Waste: A Food Systems Perspective
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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January 13, 2026, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Reducing Food Loss and Waste: A Food Systems Perspective

Reducing food loss and waste is essential for building more efficient value chains, lowering the climate footprint of agri‑food systems, and improving farmer livelihoods. This seminar brings together new insights and emerging evidence on how to tackle this challenge from multiple angles. In the first segment, Jocelyn Boiteau and Prabhu Pingali will share key findings from […]

Shaping Food Policy in a Changing World: Research Priorities for Greater Impact
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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December 15, 2025, 9:00 – 4:00 pm

Shaping Food Policy in a Changing World: Research Priorities for Greater Impact

In today’s fast-changing world and evolving food systems, the need for evidence-based food policy has never been more urgent – demanding research that is timely, inclusive, and tailored to context. Reliable data and rigorous analysis are essential, but research must also evolve – and become more timely, more relevant, and more inclusive of diverse voices […]

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News

November 11, 2025 | In the News

Smartphones, women’s rights and coupons: new trends that can boost insurance for African farmers (The Conversation)

IFPRI’s Berber Kramer and Ruth Hill discuss how new, innovative forms of insurance could help insure farmers against weather shocks, and how South Africa’s G20 presidency can support these initiatives.

June 12, 2025 | Press Release

New special issue of Food Policy examines fertilizer and soil health policies in the wake of global crises

Key findings were presented and discussed during the IFPRI policy seminar on June 11.

September 03, 2024 | Press Release

Ruth Hill joins IFPRI as the new Director of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit

Ruth Hill joins IFPRI as the new Director of its Markets, Trade, and Institutions (MTI) Unit, starting September 3, 2024. 

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Research

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