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June 8, 2022
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Continuing Food Security Impacts of Ukraine Crisis: The war in Ukraine has now surpassed the 100-day mark, and the ongoing food systems impacts are being broadly felt around the world through high food and fertilizer prices. IFPRI continues to follow the developments closely and provide analysis at the global and regional levels. Two publicly available tools, IFPRI's Food & Fertilizer Export Restrictions Tracker and Fertilizer Dashboard, are informing these analyses.

To stay up to date, you can follow our special blog series, edited by IFPRI Senior Research Fellows Joseph Glauber and David Laborde, and keep an eye on our Food Prices page.
Cash in Hand: A new meta-analysis from Harold Alderman and colleagues assesses the impact of cash transfer programs on child nutrition outcomes, substantially updating the evidence base for this topic. They find that such programs improve linear growth among young children, but only modestly. (Read Article)
Ecological Shocks: Research with smallholder households in Kenya by Martin Paul Jr. Tabe-Ojong shows that ecological shocks diminish people's perceived self-efficacy and control over their lives. Suggestive evidence points to economic adversity as a link between shocks and subsequent changes in these non-cognitive skills, raising policy implications for poverty reduction. (Read Article)
Changing of the Seasons: A longitudinal study in rural Ethiopia by IFPRI researchers and colleagues found that women's dietary diversity is low and varies greatly by season. The good news, however, is that the seasonal variation in maternal dietary diversity can be partially offset by small-scale irrigation practices. (Read Article)
Filling in the Gaps: Phuong Hong Nguyen, Sunny Kim, and colleagues examined how well evidence-based maternal nutrition interventions were incorporated in antenatal care services in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and India, identifying gaps and suggesting areas for improvement. (Read Article)
Measure for Measure?: "Using height-adjusted stunting prevalence will fail disadvantaged children worldwide," argue Jef Leroy, Edward Frongillo, and Elaine Borghi in response to a comment from S V Subramanian and colleagues in February 2022 that challenged the validity of using the prevalence of child stunting to monitor and evaluate nutrition policies. (Read Article)
Can the G7 be a Force for Good in the Current Global Food Security Crisis?: The Group of Seven wealthy nations (G7) meetings in May produced four communiqués, and a G7-led Global Alliance for Food Security was announced, putting a welcome focus on the global food security and nutrition crisis unleashed by the war in Ukraine. These efforts, and the ambitions detailed in the communiqués, could help to ensure a commensurate response to what is turning out to be the worst global hunger crisis in decades, but only if G7 commitments are backed up by action—particularly funding. The G7 development ministers referenced a series of scientific studies by Ceres2030, ZEF, and FAO that found donors need to double their current official development assistance contributions to agriculture and food security to achieve the Elmau goal and end hunger sustainably by 2030. (Read Blog)
Smoke Point: Vegetable oils account for about 10% of daily caloric food supply, making them the second most important food group after cereals, and making their current high prices cause for concern. In their blog post, Joseph Glauber, David Laborde, and Abdullah Mamun discuss the unfolding impacts of the Ukraine crisis on the global vegetable oil market, including additional factors affecting prices such as biofuel policies and export restrictions in the Black Sea and elsewhere. (Read Blog)
What’s Next for Lebanon?: Lebanon—a country already in the midst of one of the world’s worst economic collapses since the 1850s—is uniquely vulnerable to food security impacts from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. A blog post from Clemens Breisinger, Nadim Khouri, Joseph Glauber, and David Laborde outlines the issues facing the country and explores potential short-term interventions, as well as long-term policy solutions to address the crisis. (Read Blog)
From Torrents to Trickles: The environmental footprint of irrigation needs to be reduced for many reasons, including climate change, other rapidly growing demands on water resources, pressures on growing crops in water-scarce places, and crises like the Ukraine war. At the same time, irrigated areas and development will need to expand to allow farmers to navigate highly uncertain climate realities and ensure growth in national food production. Claudia Ringler discusses five areas to help increase the sustainability and equity of irrigation going forward. (Read Blog)
Increasing Capacity: Though Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) is a powerful tool that can help analyze a wide range of policy issues, it rarely receives appropriate attention in academic trainings, particularly in South Asia. Anisha Mohan shares highlights from the launch of the International Training Program on CGE Modeling in Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries—an important tool for managing food policy in a time of crisis. (Read Blog)
A FRESH Approach: As part of "FRESH," a new CGIAR research initiative, researchers will work with innovation, implementation, and scaling partners to address low fruit and vegetable consumption in low- and middle-income countries. They will take an innovative, holistic, end-to-end approach that begins with consumers to better understand their dietary patterns and barriers. In a blog post, Deanna Olney, Ravi Gopal Singh, Pepijn Schreinemachers, and Janet Hodur introduce the initiative and present an interactive graphic illustrating how FRESH approaches each stage of the food value chain. (Read Blog)
 The bad news is we're in a critical state with the climate...but the good news is that solutions are there, and many of these solutions are synergistic." — Andrew Jarvis, Associate Director-General for Research, Strategy, and Innovation, Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). (Event)
 Although we have the common advice that we [need] to eat more fruits and vegetables, this has been a very difficult recommendation to attain...it really calls for a research initiative that looks at fruits and vegetables and making them accessible [with] a holistic approach." — Namukolo Covic, Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia CGIAR, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). (Event)
Why Banning Food Exports Does Not Work: The Economist published an article describing how, amid rising inflation and the specter of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, some food-exporting countries are shutting up shop. According to IFPRI, at least 20 countries have imposed some sort of limit on exports since the war began.
Russia’s Black Sea Blockade Will Turbocharge the Global Food Crisis: An article in Foreign Policy discusses the food security dangers of a continued Russian blockade at Ukraine's ports and explains why alternative ideas for getting grain supplies out of Ukraine haven't yet materialized. The article quotes IFPRI's Joseph Glauber: "There’s plenty of incentives to try to get it out of the country; it’s just that the costs are so high. The system isn’t set up to move kind of upstream; it’s all set up to move down to those ports."
Kenya’s Push for a Purely Formal Seed System Could Be Bad for FarmersThe Conversation published an op-ed written by IFPRI Research Fellow Oliver Kiptoo Kirui, who describes the debate over banning informal seed exchanges in Kenya.
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