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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.

Erick Boy

researcher spotlight

Erick Boy

Erick Boy is the Chief Nutritionist in the HarvestPlus section of the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. As head of nutrition for the HarvestPlus Program since 2008, he has led research that has generated scientific evidence on biofortified staple crops as efficacious and effective interventions to help address iron, vitamin A, and zinc deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia.

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Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Abdul Zabbar Sakil

Research Analyst

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Bio

Abdul Zabbar Sakil is a Research Analyst in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit, based in Dhaka. Sakil has expertise in handling large-scale, intricate survey data; survey management and questionnaire development; and in evaluating government policies. His research interests focus on food security, poverty, and labor economics.

Before joining IFPRI, he served as a research associate at the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, a think tank in Dhaka. Sakil has previously been involved in projects related to child protection, PKA and household surveys, government policy reviews, and energy market economics. Sakil obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Dhaka.

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Publications

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Brief

Clustering shrimp farms in Bangladesh: A novel effort with mixed outcomes

2025Kabir, Razin; Belton, Ben; Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; Hernandez, Ricardo
Details

Clustering shrimp farms in Bangladesh: A novel effort with mixed outcomes

Organizing smallholder farmers in clusters has been widely promoted as a way to boost agricultural productivity, streamline delivery of extension services, and improve access to markets. In Bangladesh, where shrimp is an important export crop produced largely by smallholders, government and industry view clustering as key to preventing Bangladesh being left behind in an increasingly competitive global market. Bangladesh’s shrimp exports are highly dependent on the hotel, restaurant, and catering (HoReCa) sector in Europe—a small and relatively low value market segment. Gaining access to the much larger and potentially more lucrative retail market segment in Europe and North America requires high quality, traceable, and – increasingly – certified, shrimp, posing a challenging for Bangladesh.

Year published

2025

Authors

Kabir, Razin; Belton, Ben; Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; Hernandez, Ricardo

Citation

Kabir, Razin; Belton, Ben; Narayanan, Sudha; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; and Hernandez, Ricardo. 2025. Clustering shrimp farms in Bangladesh: A novel effort with mixed outcomes. South Asia Policy Perspectives 4. New Delhi, India: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174761

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Smallholders; Agricultural Productivity; Markets; Extension Systems; Shrimp Culture; Exports

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Report

The cluster panacea? An evaluation of three interventions in shrimp value chains in Bangladesh

2024Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Kabir, Razin; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; Hernandez, Ricardo
Details

The cluster panacea? An evaluation of three interventions in shrimp value chains in Bangladesh

Clustering farming has often been proposed as an effective way to overcome the significant transactions costs faced by downstream buyers in interacting and negotiating with many small farmers, while making it easier for extension workers and governments to dispense advice, provide upstream services and inputs. In this study, we evaluate the impact of a set of three initiatives in Bangladesh, implemented by a government department, a private sector processing firm and a not-for-profit industrial advocacy body, all involving clustering contiguous shrimp farm ponds to enable group certification necessary for global market access. We implement a canonical difference-in-differences model using two rounds of surveys of a sample of over 1,222 farmers in 2023 and 2024 to assess the impacts on pond management practices, net profits and any unintended impacts on food security and dietary diversity. Our results suggest that the cluster interventions had impressive impacts on adoption of better farm management practices. However, these do not appear to translate into significant gains in net profits, perhaps because these interventions are still relatively new. Further, it appears that cluster farmers pay a penalty on account of a shift to more intensive cultivation, represented by a loss in species diversity and lower incomes from fish and vegetables. We find that there are no significant spillover effects as yet on shrimp farmers in the same village as the clusters. This study reflects critically on the efficacy of clustering that is presumed to enhance access to global markets.

Year published

2024

Authors

Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Kabir, Razin; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; Hernandez, Ricardo

Citation

Narayanan, Sudha; Belton, Ben; Kabir, Razin; Sakil, Abdul Zabbar; Khan, Asraul Hoque; and Hernandez, Ricardo. 2024. The cluster panacea? An evaluation of three interventions in shrimp value chains in Bangladesh. CGIAR Initiative on Rethinking Food Markets Technical Report. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/172964

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Transaction Costs; Farmers; Shrimp Culture; Food Security; Profit

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Report