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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.

researcher spotlight

Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, based in IFPRI’s West and Central Africa office in Senegal. She has over 15 years of research experience in diet, nutrition, and food security in Africa, including countries such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania.

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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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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

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Publications

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Journal Article

COVID-19 and rural livelihoods: Lessons from a longer-term assessment and the path to recovery

2026Berrospi, Maria Lucia; Ceballos, Francisco; Hernandez, Manuel A.; Paz, Cynthia
Details

COVID-19 and rural livelihoods: Lessons from a longer-term assessment and the path to recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic had profound effects on livelihoods across rural populations worldwide. Building on earlier work that examined the initial effects of the pandemic on food security and nutrition among smallholder agricultural households in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, this study offers a longer-term assessment of the impacts and the path to recovery. We rely on a unique longitudinal survey of 1,262 households conducted over four rounds between 2019 and 2022, with the first round in person and the subsequent ones by phone. The results show substantial recoveries in food security and dietary diversity in the region by mid-2022 compared to 2020, but at levels still worse than pre-pandemic ones for some indicators. There is also a sustained increase in the intention to emigrate. The households that were initially more affected in terms of food security and nutrition but recovered faster include those located in one of the three studied departments and families living above the poverty line, while smallholders affected by hurricanes, non-coffee producers, and indigenous populations took longer to recover. We additionally provide quantitative estimates for a subsample of households interviewed in person during a fifth survey round at the end of 2022, showing an average decline of about 16 percent in total household income three years after the start of the pandemic, mainly driven by a decrease in agricultural income, combined with a 26-percent increase in expenditures and an important surge in indebtedness. Overall, the study offers valuable lessons regarding the recovery of vulnerable households following a major global crisis and in a context of additional shocks.

Year published

2026

Authors

Berrospi, Maria Lucia; Ceballos, Francisco; Hernandez, Manuel A.; Paz, Cynthia

Citation

Berrospi, Maria Lucia; Ceballos, Francisco; Hernandez, Manuel A.; and Paz, Cynthia. 2026. COVID-19 and rural livelihoods: Lessons from a longer-term assessment and the path to recovery. World Development 197(January 2026): 107200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107200

Country/Region

Guatemala

Keywords

Americas; Latin America and the Caribbean; Covid-19; Livelihoods; Food Security; Dietary Diversity; Migration; Expenditure; Shock; Rural Areas

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107200 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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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

Events

Mobility in a Fragile World: Evidence to Inform Policy
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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September 18, 2025, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Mobility in a Fragile World: Evidence to Inform Policy

Migration today reflects a complex interplay of demographic pressures, conflict, poverty, climate change, and economic shocks. Worldwide, one in every seven people is a migrant—that is, someone who changes his or her country of usual residence, irrespective of the reason for migration—or a refugee forced to leave his or her home, often without warning, for […]

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 […]

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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

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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.”