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2025 GLOBAL FOOD POLICY REPORT
FOOD POLICY
LESSONS and PRIORITIES for a CHANGING WORLD
Over the past 50 years, the world’s food systems have evolved tremendously amid major economic, environmental, and social changes. Throughout this period, policy research has played a crucial role in providing evidence and analysis to inform decision-making that supports agricultural growth, better livelihoods, and improved food security, nutrition, and well-being for all.
As a special edition marking the Institute’s 50th anniversary, the 2025 Global Food Policy Report examines the evolution and impact of food policy research and assesses how it can better equip policymakers to meet future challenges and opportunities. The report’s thematic and regional chapters, written by leading IFPRI researchers and colleagues, explore the broad range of issues and showcase research related to food systems, from tenure and agricultural extension to social protection, gender, and nutrition to conflict, political economy, and agricultural innovation, and more. As we approach 2050, policy research and analysis will be essential to help end poverty and malnutrition by building sustainable healthy food systems.
In case you missed the 2025 GFPR hybrid global launch event on May 28, the recording is available here.
Read on and explore:
GFPR Website | Report and Synopsis | Press Release
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Food Policy Research in Low- and Middle-Income Economies: Past, Present, and Future – Food policy research can help empower consumers, producers, and policymakers to address food systems challenges and make decisions that facilitate healthy, equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems transformation. Christopher B. Barrett, Maria DiGiovanni, and Johan Swinnen set the context and provide an overview of the 2025 Global Food Policy Report, which look at the impact of food policy research on agrifood transformation, sustainability, support to farmers, lives and livelihoods, governance of food systems, and regional developments. (Chapter 1)
Impact: Assessing the Outcomes of IFPRI’s Research – Food policy research plays an essential role in helping to achieve food security for all, promote sustainable and healthy diets, build efficient markets, transform economies, and strengthen food systems institutions and governance. Sivan Yosef, Tamsin Zandstra, Frank Place, and Suresh Babu examine IFPRI’s impacts over the last 50 years through providing independent, high-quality evidence to inform policy options, programs, and investments. (Chapter 2)
Agrifood Systems: Transformation, Structural Change, and Development – Agricultural transformation has long been critical to improving access to food, reducing poverty, and stimulating economic growth, but the role of agriculture in structural change and economic development is evolving in the modern context. Xinshen Diao, Margaret McMillan, Karl Pauw, and James Thurlow explain the shifting paradigms in our understanding and approaches to agricultural transformation, which continue to redefine discourse, research, and action. (Chapter 3)
Climate Change: Understanding Impacts on Agrifood Systems and Evaluating Policy Options – Climate change is a major challenge of our time, with global and far-reaching effects on and from agriculture and food systems. Mark W. Rosegrant, Elizabeth Bryan, Timothy S. Thomas, and Keith Wiebe review the evolution of research on climate change, food security, and food systems, reflecting on IFPRI’s major contributions to understanding and modeling climate change impacts and identifying promising policies and investments for mitigation and adaptation. (Chapter 4)
Environmental Sustainability: The Intersection of Agrifood Systems with Ecosystem Health – Climate change and biodiversity loss are arguably the greatest environmental challenges facing humanity today, and unsustainable agrifood systems are both a key cause and consequence of this environmental degradation. Claudia Ringler, Wei Zhang, Ephraim Nkonya, Kris Wyckhuys, Sarobidy Rakotonarivo, and Ruth Meinzen-Dick review how key environmental challenges in land, water, and energy systems intersect with agrifood systems. (Chapter 5)
Tenure: Policy Research on Resources, Rights, and Equity – Secure tenure of land and natural resources is critical for ensuring equitable, efficient, and sustainable production of food and resilient rural livelihoods. Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Isabel Lambrecht, Frank Place, Uchendu Eugene Chigbu, Iliana Monterroso, and Diana Suhardiman examine foundational concepts and key lessons from research on tenure, and identify priorities for further study, policy, and practice. (Chapter 6)
Food Value Chains: Transformations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries – Food value chains (FVCs) play a critical role in food systems by linking agricultural input providers to farmers and producers to consumers. Thomas Reardon, Bart Minten, Sudha Narayanan, and Johan Swinnen discuss major phases and revolutions that shaped the growth, structure, and importance of FVCs to economies, employment, and diets, as well as policy research issues and contributions, and look ahead to key trends that will continue to shape FVCs. (Chapter 7)
Agricultural Extension Services: From Transfer of Technology to Facilitation for Innovation – Agricultural extension and rural advisory services play a key role in the agrifood systems of many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Kristin Davis, Rikin Gandhi, Jawoo Koo, Berber Kramer, Alesha Miller, Jona Repishti, David Spielman, and Rasheed Sulaiman V. apply IFPRI’s “best fit” conceptual framework to examine the global evolution of agricultural extension and rural advisory services over the past 50 years. (Chapter 8)
Quality Seeds, Improved Varieties: The Economics of Crop Genetic Improvement and Farmer Uptake – Crop genetic improvement has long been a cornerstone of global efforts to enhance agricultural productivity, improve food security, and foster economic development. Berber Kramer and David Spielman explore evidence on the contribution of crop improvement to productivity, nutrition, environment, and poverty outcomes, before assessing evolutions in policy research and important areas for future research. (Chapter 9)
Agricultural Insurance: Policies and Programs for Reducing Farmer Risk – 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. Francisco Ceballos, Peter Hazell, Ruth Hill, and Berber Kramer examine how policy-oriented research has encouraged public investment, facilitated farmer use, and improved farmer welfare. (Chapter 10)
Social Protection Programs: Building the Evidence – Social protection programs to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and vulnerability in LMICs have become increasingly prominent over the last 50 years. Daniel O. Gilligan, Akhter Ahmed, Harold Alderman, Alan de Brauw, Melissa Hidrobo, Kalle Hirvonen, John Hoddinott, Jessica Leight, Shalini Roy, and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse examine trends in the development of social protection programs and discuss the contribution of research to changing program approaches and social protection policies. (Chapter 11)
Nutrition and Diets: Research and Action, Looking Back to Move Forward – The last half-century has seen major changes in the nature of malnutrition around the world, as well as in our understanding of its manifestations and key drivers, the people most affected, and the policies and programs developed to address it. Stuart Gillespie, Marie T. Ruel, Jef L. Leroy, Deanna Olney, and Anusara Singhkumarwong review the evolution of nutrition in both policy and programming. (Chapter 12)
Fragility and Conflict: Addressing Crises and Building Resilient Food Systems – More than ever before, hunger and malnutrition are concentrated in fragile and conflict-affected areas around the world. Kibrom Abay, Kate Ambler, Jeffrey R. Bloem, Katrina Kosec, and Khalid Siddig reflect on the evolution of food policy research conducted in these areas over the past 50 years and look ahead at how policy solutions will need to evolve to address the critical challenges that fragility and conflict present for building resilient food systems. (Chapter 13)
Gender Research: Metrics and Policies for Greater Equity and Inclusion – Research on gender in development has evolved in parallel with the growing awareness of women’s role in economic development, the importance of gender relations both within and outside the household, and the recognition that women’s empowerment and gender equality are important goals in themselves. Agnes Quisumbing, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Hazel Malapit, Jessica Heckert, Berber Kramer, and Bjorn Van Campenhout examine the evolution of gender research in the context of the development discourse on gender, focusing on agrifood systems. (Chapter 14)
Political Economy and Governance: Agriculture and Food Policy from Local to Global – Policymaking is shaped by evidence as well as by political economy and governance factors such as incentives, institutional structures, ideological biases, and power dynamics. Jordan Kyle and Danielle Resnick with Jonathan Mockshell examine the key areas of decentralization, agriculture and food policy reform processes, political economy of distribution, and state capacity, before looking ahead to the need to build effective and legitimate global institutions for food systems governance. (Chapter 15)
Agrifood Trade: Changing Challenges, Changing Perspectives on Policy and Policy Research – Agrifood trade plays a key role in ensuring food security. Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla, Madhur Gautam, Joseph Glauber, Will Martin, Valeria Piñeiro, Sherman Robinson, Fousseini Traoré, and Rob Vos review the evolution of trade research, with a focus on the contributions made by IFPRI and others, as well as priorities for future research. (Chapter 16)
Agricultural Innovation Policies: Prioritizing Investments and Promoting Uptake and Impacts at Scale –Technological progress in agriculture is essential to tackling the many challenges facing food systems, but it has been unevenly distributed around the world, along with the accompanying gains in productivity and welfare. Catherine Ragasa, David Spielman, and John Lynam review the evolution of research on technical change and public policy and the latest strategies being pursued to accelerate change. (Chapter 17)
Financing: From Supporting Agricultural Production to Transforming Food Systems – Theory and practice around the financing of agricultural and food production have evolved over the last 50 years amid changes in the role of agriculture in supporting economic growth and rural development. Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla examines key financial challenges in LMIC agrifood systems and describes related policy research, as well as highlighting possible policy options to mobilize future financing for food systems transformation. (Chapter 18)
Regional Developments and Priorities: IFPRI researchers and colleagues explore the past 50 years of food systems research in Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa, while looking toward the future. (Chapters 19-24)
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