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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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Michigan State University (MSU) is the United States’ pioneer land-grant university and one of the top research universities in the world. MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) is dedicated to creating solutions to today’s most difficult challenges related to food, health, and the environment. CANR helps to create solutions to address the world’s greatest problems related to food, health and the environment. The College includes facilities such as a meat lab, greenhouses, and horticultural gardens.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Market channel and other drivers of tomato farmer production and handling practices in Nigeria

2026Gurmu, M.Y.; Liverpool-Tasie, L.S.O.; Olayinka, O.; Assfaw Wossen, T.; Yamauchi, Futoshi; Feleke, S.; Abdoulaye, T.
Details

Market channel and other drivers of tomato farmer production and handling practices in Nigeria

Non-contract farming arrangements remain the dominant marketing option for poor, often food-insecure smallholder farmers in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet such farming arrangements are less studied than contract farming. Using a case study of 1,673 Nigerian tomato farmers, this study examined whether selling to midstream actors such as wholesalers and aggregators (via informal market arrangements) supports farmers’ adoption of good agricultural practices. We first explored the drivers of farmer sales to different market channels using a multinomial logit model. Then, using multivariate probit analysis, we identified factors associated with the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP) and good handling practices (GHP) with particular attention to a farmers’ market channel. We found that larger smallholder farmers using modern irrigation are more likely to sell to midstream actors. We also found that selling to wholesalers and aggregators is an important determinant of farmers’ adoption of GAP and GHP, and this holds even for the smallest smallholder farmers. These results confirm that even where informal trading arrangements dominate (as is common in most LMICs), value chain actors in the midstream of food supply chains can support farmer adoption of GAP and GHP. These relationships have important implications for food security via enhancing the livelihoods of smallholder producers and improving the availability and safety of fresh produce for consumers, and thus should be leveraged in the design and implementation of efforts to expand farmer adoption of GAP and GHP.

Year published

2026

Authors

Gurmu, M.Y.; Liverpool-Tasie, L.S.O.; Olayinka, O.; Assfaw Wossen, T.; Yamauchi, Futoshi; Feleke, S.; Abdoulaye, T.

Citation

Yami, M., Liverpool-Tasie, L.S.O., Olayinka, O., Wossen, T., Yamauchi, F., Feleke, S., & Abdoulaye, T. (2026). Market channel and other drivers of tomato farmer production and handling practices in Nigeria. Food Security, 1-18. Article in press.

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Markets; Contract Farming; Good Agricultural Practices; Good Practices; Tomato; Farmers

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-026-01646-9 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Livelihoods and recovery after Cyclone Idai: Short- and long-run household evidence from Mozambique

2025Allen IV, James; Yu, Hang
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Livelihoods and recovery after Cyclone Idai: Short- and long-run household evidence from Mozambique

Sub-Saharan Africa bears a disproportionate share of global poverty and is also among the regions most vulnerable to natural disasters that pose persistent threats to livelihoods, food security, and long-run development. This study examines how exposure to a major natural disaster—Cyclone Idai, one of the deadliest and costliest disasters in Mozambique’s history—affected household well-being and economic behavior in central Mozambique following its landfall in March 2019. We combine satellite-based best-track data on Cyclone Idai’s trajectory with longitudinal household survey data collected both shortly after the disaster and five to six years later. Specifically, we link predicted maximum wind speed at the community level to a pre-defined sample of households surveyed before the cyclone, allowing us to estimate impacts in the short run (within the same year) and the longer run. This design leverages rich pre-baseline data and province fixed effects to mitigate concerns about selection bias, displacement, and omitted variables that commonly complicate causal inference in disaster impact studies. We find that greater cyclone exposure is strongly associated with short-run reports of shock experience and asset loss, validating predicted wind speed as a measure of disaster intensity. In the long run, however, households appear to recover from the immediate shock. Cyclone exposure is associated with persistent declines in reliance on agriculture as a primary livelihood and increases in small business activity and formal wage employment. At the same time, we observe mixed effects on asset ownership, with sustained declines in housing ownership alongside increases in durable asset holdings. Future work will continue to highlight how complex and heterogeneous pathways through which large-scale disasters reshape household livelihoods and economic behavior over time.

Year published

2025

Authors

Allen IV, James; Yu, Hang

Citation

Allen IV, James; and Yu, Hang. 2025. Livelihoods and recovery after Cyclone Idai: Short- and long-run household evidence from Mozambique. FCA Brief. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178950

Country/Region

Mozambique

Keywords

Southern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Livelihoods; Cyclones; Extreme Weather Events; Households

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Journal Article

Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia

2025Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; Ringler, Claudia
Details

Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia

Small-scale irrigation (SSI) interventions have received increasing attention as a potential pathway for women’s empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa. One key aspect of women’s empowerment that SSI can influence is women’s time burden. Hypothesized benefits of SSI for women are less energy exertion and reduced labor in agriculture. Yet, these hypotheses have not been tested empirically. We explore how household adoption of different SSI technologies affects the time allocation of women in the household, using two rounds of intrahousehold panel survey data from Ethiopia. Two different approaches are used to address potential endogeneity issues related to time-constant and time-varying factors that may be correlated with both SSI and time use: an instrumental variables-correlated random effects approach and a fractional multinomial logit-correlated random effects with control function approach. The results suggest that household use of SSI in general is associated with an increase in women’s leisure time. The results further suggest that household use of motor pumps is associated with an increase in women’s leisure time and reductions in the time they spend on farming and personal care. Given that women often provide the labor for irrigation using manual, labor-intensive methods, such as watering cans, buckets, or hand- or foot-powered treadle pumps, the results suggest that SSI using motorized methods has the potential to free up women’s time in farming and enable more leisure time. These findings have broad implications for women’s empowerment and labor allocation. Future research using new and more comprehensive data could explore the mechanisms for the findings in this study and determine if SSI enables women to improve their ability to allocate their time to activities they prefer.

Year published

2025

Authors

Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; Ringler, Claudia

Citation

Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; and Ringler, Claudia. 2025. Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia. World Development 196(December 2025): 107106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107106

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Small-scale Irrigation; Women; Time Use Patterns; Women’s Empowerment; Gender; Logit Analysis; Water Management; Free Time

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107106 Source record

Project

Water, Land and Ecosystems

Record type

Journal Article

Events

Assessments of the Impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar's food security and welfare
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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November 11, 2020, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

Assessments of the Impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar’s food security and welfare

While a much stronger second wave of COVID-19 cases poses a serious and sustained threat to the health of the Myanmar population, it also brings renewed economic disruptions and poses new challenges for efforts to avert poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. To generate evidence that can better inform the design of emergency response and economic […]

COVID-19 and Food Market Disruptions in Myanmar
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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October 15, 2020, 9:00 – 10:30 am

COVID-19 and Food Market Disruptions in Myanmar

The rise of COVID-19 infections and policies imposed to control the spread of the disease might have created significant food market disruptions. Disruptions in food markets are an obvious concern, given the importance of agricultural prices for the income of farmers and food prices for the already lower purchasing power – due to reduced incomes […]

Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Food and Nutrition Security in Myanmar
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

September 15, 2020, 9:00 – 10:30 am

Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Food and Nutrition Security in Myanmar

The impacts of the COVID-19 economic crisis are threatening the livelihoods and welfare of vulnerable households in Myanmar. Declining household income, from increases in unemployment and declines in remittances, can have negative long-term effects on the food and nutrition insecurity of households and the overall welfare of vulnerable populations. A deeper understanding of the social […]

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Blogs

High pesticide use among smallholders in Africa south of the Sahara poses risks for health, environment
Research Post
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November 14, 2018

High pesticide use among smallholders in Africa south of the Sahara poses risks for health, environment

By Jenny Smart, Jason Snyder, Joey Goeb, and David Tschirley

As demand for their crops rises, horticultural farmers in particular are employing hazardous pesticides. What can be done?