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Who we are

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

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

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Where we work

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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partnerships

Russian Federation, in partnership with Lomonosov Moscow State University’s Eurasian Center for Food Security, works to improve food security through a sustainable management of natural resources and food market regulation. Its mission is to encourage and coordinate collective action to strengthen food security in Eurasia through research and development. The Center was created in a response to the G8’s L’Aquila Food Security Initiative and prioritizes food security and agricultural sustainability as important policy developments at the global, regional and national levels.

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Publications

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Working Paper

How have foreign exchange market distortions and conflict affected agricultural production incentives in Myanmar?

2024Myanmar Agrifood Program for Strategy and Analysis
Details

How have foreign exchange market distortions and conflict affected agricultural production incentives in Myanmar?

Fluctuations in agricultural prices pose significant challenges for fragile and conflict-affected economies due to their critical role in ensuring food security. This study examines changes in agricultural prices at the export, wholesale, and farm level in the case of Myanmar, which experienced a surge in conflicts from 2021 onward, following a military coup. The major findings are as follows: • Regarding macroeconomic impacts, the military government implemented a dual exchange rate system, maintaining a fixed exchange rate significantly below the market rate and effectively imposing an across-the-board export tax on all export commodities of approximately 24 percent between August 2022 and August 2024. This policy particularly affects rice, Myanmar’s main staple and a key export crop. • The scarcity of foreign exchange due to this dual exchange rate system increased the costs of imported inputs. It is estimated that prices of inorganic fertilizers – farmers’ most important commercial input – saw an increase of 10 percent compared to the price in Thailand since the start of the dual exchange rate system. • Regarding domestic trade effects, regions with the highest insecurity exhibited similar agricultural output prices but higher input costs, resulting in reduced farm profitability compared to more secure regions. However, the magnitude of these effects is relatively small, with estimated increases in input prices due to insecurity ranging from one to six percent. Insecure areas also show more often a lack of input availability. • Farmers who reside in insecure areas reported between one and six percentage points higher lack of access to agricultural inputs – fertilizer, agrochemicals, mechanization, and seed – in their communities. The relatively small effects of insecurity on input and output markets suggest a degree of resilience in the private sector’s ability to maintain trade under conflict conditions. • The biggest effect on input markets is seen in the case of agricultural labor. Depending on the measure used, farmers in the most insecure areas had a 7 to 15 percentage points higher likelihood of reporting lack of access to agricultural laborers compared to the most secure areas. • The exchange rate policies are found to have been much more harmful for farmers’ incentives than the domestic trade effects, even for the most conflict-affected areas, indicating the importance of considering macroeconomic effects for agricultural incentives in Myanmar. • Despite the significant disincentives brought about by conflict, the agricultural sector has shown surprising resilience over the recent conflict period, seemingly linked to advantageous international price developments for farmers: international rice prices increased by 27 percent while urea prices decreased by 52 percent between August 2022 and May 2024. • While these international evolutions have partly mitigated the impact of the conflict on farmers’ profitability, the impacts of these price developments on consumers in Myanmar have, however, been severe. An analysis of rice retail prices in Myanmar over the last two and half years show that they have more than tripled and that the overall costs of the common diet more than doubled. A failure of nominal income to keep pace with this food price inflation led to an increase in poverty by 10 percent from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023.

Year published

2024

Authors

Myanmar Agrifood Program for Strategy and Analysis

Citation

Myanmar Agrifood Program for Strategy and Analysis (MAPSA). 2024. How have foreign exchange market distortions and conflict affected agricultural production incentives in Myanmar? Myanmar SSP Working Paper 60. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

South-eastern Asia; Agricultural Prices; Economic Systems; Food Security; Markets; Exports; Taxes; Imports; Farmers; Inputs

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

Innovative financing mechanisms for climate adaptation in African agrifood systems

2024D’Alessandro, Cecilia; Adeniyi, Daniel; Araba, Lade
Details

Innovative financing mechanisms for climate adaptation in African agrifood systems

Agrifood systems are a leading cause of climate change globally, as they are responsible for a third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the majority of which are tied to agricultural production (39 percent), followed by land use (32 percent) and supply chain activities (29 percent). Moreover, unsustainable agricultural practices continue to drive 80 percent of the loss of terrestrial biodiversity, soil degradation, and deforestation and are responsible for 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals. GHG emissions are projected to increase by 60 to 90 percent through 2050 unless corrective action is taken (Apampa et al. 2021). Africa’s share of global GHG emissions is small (2 to 3 percent) but rising, with agriculture and land use change as major contributors (Adolph, Griffiths, and Hou-Jones 2023; FAO 2022).

Year published

2024

Authors

D’Alessandro, Cecilia; Adeniyi, Daniel; Araba, Lade

Citation

D’Alessandro, Cecilia; Adeniyi, Daniel; and Araba, Lade. 2024. Innovative financing mechanisms for climate adaptation in African agrifood systems. In Advancing the climate and bioeconomy agenda in Africa for resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, eds. Getaw Tadesse, Katrin Glatzel, and Moumini Savadogo. Chapter 10, Pp. 150-167. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155093

Keywords

Africa; Climate Change Adaptation; Agrifood Systems; Financing; Innovation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Book Chapter

Adaptation actions to climate change in African agriculture: Effectiveness and challenges

2024Tadesse, Getaw; Barry, Ndeye Yacine
Details

Adaptation actions to climate change in African agriculture: Effectiveness and challenges

Climate change poses a significant burden to African development and economic growth, impacting households at both national and regional levels. While accounting for only 3–4 percent of global emissions, Africa is most vulnerable to climate change due to low levels of socioeconomic growth (Kikstra et al. 2022). Africa’s vulnerability to climate change is exacerbated by its reliance on rain-fed agriculture, environmental degradation, inadequate infrastructure, widespread poverty, and increased frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters. These factors make Africa highly susceptible to climate-related disruptions such as droughts and floods and can amplify the impact of climate-related disasters on communities, economies, and ecosystems (UNECA 2013; WMO 2020). Effective adaptation strategies and risk financing mechanisms are crucial for building regional adaptive capacity and resilience.

Year published

2024

Authors

Tadesse, Getaw; Barry, Ndeye Yacine

Citation

Tadesse, Getaw; and Barry, Ndeye Yacine. 2024. Adaptation actions to climate change in African agriculture: Effectiveness and challenges. In Advancing the climate and bioeconomy agenda in Africa for resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, eds. Getaw Tadesse, Katrin Glatzel, and Moumini Savadogo. Chapter 7, Pp. 78-97. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155082

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Agriculture; Climate Change Adaptation; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter