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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.

Ahmed Akhter

researcher spotlight

Akhter Ahmed

Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the IFPRI’s Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and Country Representative for IFPRI Bangladesh. He has worked on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey.

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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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The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), one of fifteen CGIAR Research Centers, undertakes scientific research for development. ICRISAT believes that everyone is entitled to nutritious food and a better quality of life. Their approach is through partnerships and with an Inclusive Market Oriented Development. ICRISAT takes a catalyst role to help rural communities develop their own solution and engage the actors needed to bring the vision to reality.

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Publications

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Working Paper

Detecting cumulative effects of inputs within the flexible production function framework through LASSO shrinkage estimation: Implications for potassium fertilizer use in India

2025Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Kishore, Avinash
Details

Detecting cumulative effects of inputs within the flexible production function framework through LASSO shrinkage estimation: Implications for potassium fertilizer use in India

Despite recognition of the potentially significant cumulative effects of input use on annual crop output—such as the effect of applying inorganic fertilizer in one year on crop output in the subsequent year—real-world evidence from smallholder farmers’ fields in lower-income countries remains scarce. We narrow this knowledge gap using unique district-level and farm-household-level annual panel datasets in India. We start with flexible translog production functions, which are well-suited for identifying cumulative effects in farmers’ actual production environments. We then apply shrinkage methods (LASSO and GMM-LASSO) to approximate the production function with reduced parameter dimensions, addressing various challenges such as multicollinearity among multiple inputs, including the same inputs from the current and previous years, and potential endogeneity in inputs. Our results indicate that, throughout the shrinkage process, potassium remains a key predictor of outputs, while other inputs (land, labor, capital, irrigation, and other fertilizer nutrients) drop out. More important, the cumulative quantity of potassium from both the previous and current years is a consistently more critical determinant of production than the quantity of potassium from the current year alone, demonstrating the potassium’s significant cumulative effects. These patterns hold at both the district and farm levels across diverse agroecologies and cropping systems. Furthermore, the dynamic panel data analyses suggest that farmers’ use of potassium in the current year is significantly negatively affected by its use in the previous year, potentially stabilizing outputs across years. Our results support earlier agronomic findings suggesting that the cumulative effects of potassium may be relevant across wider geographic regions than previously thought.

Year published

2025

Authors

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Kishore, Avinash

Citation

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; and Kishore, Avinash. 2025. Detecting cumulative effects of inputs within the flexible production function framework through LASSO shrinkage estimation: Implications for potassium fertilizer use in India. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2332. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174101

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Fertilizers; Inputs; Machine Learning; Potassium

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Dataset

Drivers of Pigeon Peas Consumption Among School Aged Children in Central Tanzania

2024International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
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Drivers of Pigeon Peas Consumption Among School Aged Children in Central Tanzania

Data was collected from 138 caregivers of reproductive age (20-49 years) residing in four villages—Laikala, Mlali, Moleti, and Chitego—in Kongwa District, Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The caregivers were from households with school-aged children (5–12 years) and were randomly selected using the random walk sampling method. In each selected household, one caregiver was chosen based on their prior knowledge and consumption of pigeon pea, as well as their willingness to participate in the study. The data collection involved a questionnaire designed to combine the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Health Belief Model (HBM). This questionnaire assessed both internal and external factors influencing caregivers’ choices regarding pigeon pea consumption for their children. Respondents indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with various statements on a Likert scale, as read by interviewers. This cross-sectional data is intended to provide insights into the factors affecting pigeon pea consumption and is valuable for developing programs and interventions aimed at increasing its intake in the Kongwa District.

Year published

2024

Authors

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Citation

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). 2022. Drivers of Pigeon Peas Consumption Among School Aged Children in Central Tanzania. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/VFF2EE. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Keywords

Tanzania; Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Pigeon Peas; Children; School Children; Food Consumption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/vff2ee Source record

Record type

Dataset

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Dataset

Survey of Land and Water Management Practices Over Time on the Productivity and Economic Benefits of Cereal Crops

2023International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
Details

Survey of Land and Water Management Practices Over Time on the Productivity and Economic Benefits of Cereal Crops

Land and water management practices like that of contour bunding, drip irrigation and shallow wells have been implemented by farmers over time in southern Mali. Farmers use these practices to improve yield performance and increase the household income. The impact of land and water management practices was evaluated on different crops (sorghum, millet, maize, groundnut and cotton) grown in two agro-ecologies of southern Mali. The data collected complete the data on environmental domain (field experiment from 2015 to 2017). That data were collected from the four established technology parks in Bougouni and Koutiala.

Year published

2023

Authors

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Citation

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). 2023. Survey of Land and Water Management Practices Over Time on the Productivity and Economic Benefits of Cereal Crops. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HIMC9V. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Country/Region

Mali

Keywords

Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Water Management; Land Management; Contour Bunding; Drip Irrigation; Agroecology; Household Income; Crops; Sorghum; Maize; Groundnuts; Cotton

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/himc9v Source record

Record type

Dataset