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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.

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Danielle Resnick

Danielle Resnick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit and a Non-Resident Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on the political economy of agricultural policy and food systems, governance, and democratization, drawing on extensive fieldwork and policy engagement across Africa and South Asia.

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experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Sudha Narayanan

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Sudha Narayanan is a Senior Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in the South Asia Office in New Delhi. Sudha’s research interests span agriculture, food and nutrition policy, and human development. She is particularly interested in survey-based research using microeconometric approaches to understand broader questions of agrarian change and state delivery systems for nutrition security. Her research focuses on contract farming, agrifood value chains, digital technologies in agrifood systems, technology adoption in agriculture, public policies for food security and employment, and agriculture-nutrition linkages.

Sudha was previously an Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai She earned a PhD from Cornell University in Agricultural Economics. She also holds a dual master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India. Prior to her PhD studies, she worked with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, the Right to Food Campaign in India, and Cornell University, among others.

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Publications

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Brief

Life after a cluster intervention: Insights from shrimp farming in Bangladesh

2025Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Kabir, Razin; Redoy, Md.; Belton, Ben
Details

Life after a cluster intervention: Insights from shrimp farming in Bangladesh

This project note summarizes insights from a three-year research project focused on an ambitious cluster intervention by the Department of Fisheries (DoF), Government of Bangladesh for shrimp farmers. In 2022, as part of a World Bank funded project, the Department of Fisheries organized smallholder shrimp farmers with contiguous ponds into clusters in Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat districts in southwest Bangladesh. Each cluster brought together 20-25 farmers, with pond sizes of at most 1.5 acres in size, to deliver training on best management practices, supply inputs, and encourage coordination. Group members were encouraged to follow a suite of management practices aimed at raising farm productivity, reducing the incidence of shrimp disease, and increasing the supply of raw material for processors. These measures included farming bagda shrimp (P. monodon)—Bangladesh’s main export species—in monoculture, raising shrimp stocking densities, stocking disease-free shrimp larvae (SPFPL), using factory-made feeds, deepening ponds, erecting biosecurity fencing, and coordinating stocking and harvesting activities with other group members. The costs of deepening ponds and adopting other improved management practices were borne by farmers themselves, but the clusters that made these investments received free SPF-PL and feed as incentives for doing so. The goal of this cluster intervention was to promote sufficient volumes of shrimp for processing plants for export, eventually paving the way for instituting traceability systems and group-based sustainability certification, increasingly a requirement in global retail markets. Even at the time of inception, the cluster program was intended as a time-bound two-year project that would end in 2025.

Year published

2025

Authors

Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Kabir, Razin; Redoy, Md.; Belton, Ben

Citation

Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Kabir, Razin; Redoy, Md.; and Belton, Ben. 2025. Life after a cluster intervention: Insights from shrimp farming in Bangladesh. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/179366

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Shrimp Fisheries; Evaluation; Shrimp Culture; Farming Systems; Aquaculture Systems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Working Paper

Nudging farmers toward disease-free shrimp technology with financial incentives: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2025Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Maredia, Mywish K.; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Kabir, Razin
Details

Nudging farmers toward disease-free shrimp technology with financial incentives: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Price discounts are a common policy tool to promote agricultural technology adoption in low-income settings, yet their effectiveness may be limited when farmers face uncertainty or have access to familiar alternatives. We test this through a randomized controlled trial with shrimp farmers in southwestern coastal Bangladesh, a region highly exposed to climate shocks. The government promotes Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) post-larvae (PL)—certified as disease-free—to reduce high mortality in shrimp farming. Farmers were randomly offered varying discount levels for two SPF-PL types, differing in size uniformity and market price (proxies for quality), with the highest discount reducing their prices to parity with conventional non-SPF PL. We find no significant effect of discounts on adoption of the lower-priced Mid-grade SPF-PL, characterized by less size uniformity. In contrast, discounts significantly increased adoption of the higher-priced, more uniform Premium-grade SPF-PL, raising uptake by 10–19 percentage points among active shrimp farmers. Larger discounts did not yield higher adoption than smaller ones, indicating diminishing returns to discount generosity. Heterogeneity analyses reveal behavioral and contextual mechanisms: prior exposure to Mid-grade SPF-PL reduced its subsequent adoption but increased responsiveness to Premium-grade, consistent with experience effects and reference dependence. Cyclone exposure dampened treatment responses, suggesting capital constraints, while infrastructure preparedness (e.g., nursing facilities) enhanced uptake. These findings underscore that in high-risk agricultural systems, price incentives alone may not drive adoption unless the promoted input is perceived as effective. Successful promotion strategies must integrate quality assurance with attention to farmer experience, behavioral biases, and vulnerability to shocks.

Year published

2025

Authors

Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Maredia, Mywish K.; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Kabir, Razin

Citation

Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Maredia, Mywish K.; Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; and Kabir, Razin. 2025. Nudging farmers toward disease-free shrimp technology with financial incentives: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh. IFPRI Working Paper. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178761

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Farmers; Shellfish Diseases; Financial Policies; Shrimp Culture; Pond Culture; Supply Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Can the global drone revolution make agriculture more sustainable? Rapid growth in drone use is upending expectations but also inducing trade-offs

2025Belton, Ben; Baldiga, Leo; Justice, Scott; Minten, Bart; Narayanan, Sudha; Reardon, Thomas
Details

Can the global drone revolution make agriculture more sustainable? Rapid growth in drone use is upending expectations but also inducing trade-offs

Use of drones has increased considerably over the past decade, reshaping activities as diverse as warfare, entertainment, delivery services, and disease control. One of the most consequential uses of drones—in agriculture—has taken off globally within only the past 5 years. This is upending expectations and may help to reconcile a fundamental sustainability dilemma—how to produce more food by using fewer inputs—but is also inducing trade-offs. This rapid change has been largely unnoticed by researchers outside of the specialized technical worlds of aeronautical engineering and precision agriculture. Little academic attention has been paid to the use of agricultural drones beyond the laboratory or trial plot. Evidence of the extent and effects of drones’ real-world use is partial and fragmentary. We explored evidence and hypotheses about global agricultural drone diffusion and its implications for sustainability and set out an agenda for future policy and science.

Year published

2025

Authors

Belton, Ben; Baldiga, Leo; Justice, Scott; Minten, Bart; Narayanan, Sudha; Reardon, Thomas

Citation

Belton, Ben; Baldiga, Leo; Justice, Scott; Minten, Bart; Narayanan, Sudha; and Reardon, Thomas. 2025. Can the global drone revolution make agriculture more sustainable? Rapid growth in drone use is upending expectations but also inducing trade-offs. Science 389(6764): 972-976. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ady1791

Keywords

Agriculture; Crops; Sustainability; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ady1791 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Inspirational filmmaking to raise women’s voice and agency in the construction of assets for climate resilience in India
Research Post
 | 
December 26, 2023

Inspirational filmmaking to raise women’s voice and agency in the construction of assets for climate resilience in India

By Jordan Kyle, Katrina Kosec, Sudha Narayanan, and Kalyani Raghunathan

Compelling personal stories as a learning and motivational tool.

How India’s agrifood supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown, from farm to fork
Guest Post
 | 
July 20, 2020

How India’s agrifood supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown, from farm to fork

By Sudha Narayanan

Food systems have proven more resilient than many expected, but vulnerable populations still need help.

Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

August 2 to 7, 2024

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists

The triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), centred on the theme “Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems” is scheduled from August 2-7, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The conference offers a distinctive platform, providing a golden opportunity for the agricultural academic institutions and researchers to convene in person, exchange knowledge, and actively contribute to the […]

2024 GFPR India Launch
Series/Special Event

 | 

July 4, 2024, 10:00 – 5:20 pm

2024 GFPR India Launch

Unhealthy diets are a major driver of all forms of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity. At the same time, our food systems contribute about a third of greenhouse gas emissions and degrade natural resources. The 2024 Global Food Policy Report examines policies, innovations, and governance solutions to strengthen diet quality and […]

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Transforming Diets
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

November 9 to 10, 2022

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Transforming Diets

Hybrid Event: November 9, 2022 – 4:30 PM to November 10, 2022 – 6:30 PM GMT. The purpose of this conference is to synthesize relevant evidence and stimulate dialogue to inform and guide policy and program initiatives in South Asia for improving equitable access to and consumption of healthy diets.

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News

April 17, 2023 | In the News

MGNREGA attendance app a govt ploy to discourage workers, contain expenses? (The Federal) 

The Federal (India) writes in a piece that “workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are now required to mark attendance twice a day with onsite, geo-tagged photos through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app.  Sudha Narayanan a researcher at IFPRI, has evaluated MGNREGA through studies and surveys since it […]

December 22, 2020 | In the News

MSP–The factoids vs. the facts (The Hindu)

The Hindu published an op-ed by Reteeka Khera, Senior Research Fellow Sudha Narayanan, and  Prankur Gupta on the purpose of the MSP and the debate on agricultural issues that must take into account the changed geography of procurement and the seller’s profile. 

December 15, 2020 | In the News

MSP–The factoids vs. the facts (The Hindu)

The Hindu published an op-ed by Reteeka Khera, Senior Research Fellow Sudha Rayanan, and  Prankur Gupta on the purpose of the MSP and the debate on agricultural issues that must take into account the changed geography of procurement and the seller’s profile.

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