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With research staff from more than 70 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

Danielle Resnick

Danielle Resnick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit and a Non-Resident Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on the political economy of agricultural policy and food systems, governance, and democratization, drawing on extensive fieldwork and policy engagement across Africa and South Asia.

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Foresight and Policy Modeling

Andrew Comstock

Senior Research Analyst

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Bio

Andrew Comstock is a Senior Research Analyst with the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit based in Washington and a member of the Unit’s consumer behavior and dietary change workstream. His research focuses on food systems transformation and demand system estimation in Africa and Asia. He has provided research support to the Pakistan, Malawi, and Nigeria country programs – among others – while his recent work has focused on cross-cutting issues related to food security and diets. Andrew received his master’s in Internation Economics and Development from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

Publications

Publications

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Brief

Nutrition and dietary quality in Sri Lanka: Insights from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

2025
Tinneberg, Pia; Headey, Derek D.; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier; Marshall, Quinn; Sitisekara, Hasara; Silva, Renuka; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata
…more Sabai, Moe; Stifel, Elizabeth; van Asselt, Joanna; Weerasinghe, Krishani
Details

Nutrition and dietary quality in Sri Lanka: Insights from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

Key findings and policy implications • Dietary quality in Sri Lanka – defined in terms of consumption levels of different healthy food groups – falls well short of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health’s 2021 Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) targets, with clear imbalances across food groups. • Heavy dependence on starchy staples. Starchy foods dense in calories but sparse in nutrients provide over 60% of total energy consumption, highlighting a strong over-consumption of rice. • Low consumption of nutrient-rich foods. Intakes of fruits, dark green leafy vegetables (DGLVs), and legumes are at only about one-third of the recommended levels. • Some households report zero consumption of healthy food groups. More than 30% of households report zero consumption of dairy foods in the past 7 days, while 15% report zero consumption of dark green leafy vegetables, and 5% zero fruit, indicating that important foods are absent from many household diets. • Multidimensional dietary deprivation. Nearly all Sri Lankan households are deprived in at least one food group. A typical deprived household falls below the reference threshold in six to seven of eight food groups and consumes only about 37% of the recommended amounts for the foods in which consumption is lower than recommended. • Significant dietary inequality across sectors. Dietary deprivation is most acute in the estate sector, while rural and urban areas fare moderately better. • There is a clear need to promote healthy dietary diversification, especially higher consumption of fruits, legumes, vegetables and dairy, while moderating excess consumption of starchy staples. • Institutionalize regular monitoring of diet deprivation, using the Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index and other dietary indicators to guide targeted nutrition interventions. • Support further research on the drivers of dietary patterns in Sri Lanka to better understand its determinants and differences between sectors.

Year published

2025

Authors

Tinneberg, Pia; Headey, Derek D.; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier; Marshall, Quinn; Sitisekara, Hasara; Silva, Renuka; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata; Sabai, Moe; Stifel, Elizabeth; van Asselt, Joanna; Weerasinghe, Krishani

Citation

Tinneberg, Pia; Headey, Derek D.; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier; Marshall, Quinn; et al. 2025. Nutrition and dietary quality in Sri Lanka: Insights from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey. BRIGHT Sri Lanka Project Note 7. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178184

Country/Region

Sri Lanka

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Nutrition; Diet Quality; Nutrient Intake; Health Diets; Nutritive Value; Surveys

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Working Paper

The future of food demand: A global meta-analysis and projections of income and price elasticities

2025Roche, Maxime; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier
Details

The future of food demand: A global meta-analysis and projections of income and price elasticities

Understanding how food demand responds to household income and price changes is essential for anticipating global food needs and designing effective food policies. Yet existing elasticity estimates vary widely due to differences in data, estimation methods, and study settings. This study aims to assess how empirical choices influence elasticity values and examine theory-based predictions related to income growth and inequality, urbanization, and demographic change. It provides the most comprehensive global systematic literature review and meta-analysis of income and price elasticities to date, compiling over 13,000 elasticity estimates from 215 peer-reviewed studies published between 1974 and 2022. We estimate two-level random effects meta-regressions and use the results to generate predicted elasticities for nine food groups by world region. While most data and methodological choices have little effect on price elasticity estimates, income elasticities are influenced by factors such as demand model type, use of conditional specifications, and the choice of expenditure measure. We find empirical support for Engel’s Law but only partial support for Bennett’s Law. Income elasticities are positively associated with urbanization, particularly in lower-income countries, and negatively associated with population aging. By projecting income elasticities through 2050 under alternative Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, we show that ignoring structural shifts in sociodemographics can yield meaningfully different estimates of future food demand.

Year published

2025

Authors

Roche, Maxime; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier

Citation

Roche, Maxime; Comstock, Andrew; and Ecker, Olivier. 2025. The future of food demand: A global meta-analysis and projections of income and price elasticities. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2361. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176595

Keywords

Systematic Reviews; Forecasting; Meta-analysis; Prices; Elasticities

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Working Paper

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Book Chapter

Food processing: A stalled transformation

2024Minten, Bart; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew R.; Mahrt, Kristi; Fang, Peixun; Goeb, Joseph; Zone, Phoo Pye
Details

Food processing: A stalled transformation

Processed foods account for 80 percent of global food sales. Such foods are becoming increasingly important in low- and middle-income countries, driven by growing demand for convenient and ready-to-eat products. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the state and evolution of food processing in Myanmar and to assess the effect of the crises (COVID-19 and the military coup) on the different segments—production, trade, and consumption—of the sector. This assessment is important given the possible implications of changes in food processing for agriculture, employment opportunities in the food processing industry and food service sector, and nutritional outcomes.

Year published

2024

Authors

Minten, Bart; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew R.; Mahrt, Kristi; Fang, Peixun; Goeb, Joseph; Zone, Phoo Pye

Citation

Minten, Bart; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew; Mahrt, Kristi; Fang, Peixun; Goeb, Joseph; and Zone, Phoo Pye. 2024. Food processing: A stalled transformation. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities. Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Masias, Ian; and Minten, Bart (Eds.). Chapter 13, Pp. 341-372. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155155

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

South-eastern Asia; Food Processing; Shock; Agro-industrial Sector; Markets; Trade; Processed Foods

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

Events

The E-FooD Dataset and Food Security Simulators for Kenya and Nigeria: Innovative Tools to Support National Policies and Strategies
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

December 7, 2023, 8:00 – 9:00 am

The E-FooD Dataset and Food Security Simulators for Kenya and Nigeria: Innovative Tools to Support National Policies and Strategies

Virtual Event: December 7, 2023 – 8:00 AM- 9:00 AM EST. This webinar, organized by the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), introduces the E-FooD dataset and FSS for Kenya and Nigeria, showcases their applications, and discusses the role that such tools can play in policymaking.