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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.

researcher spotlight

Agnes Quisumbing

Agnes Quisumbing is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. She co-leads a research program that examines how closing the gap between men’s and women’s ownership and control of assets may lead to better development outcomes.

Where we work

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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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Development Strategies and Governance

Kibrom Abay

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Kibrom A. Abay is a Senior Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Washington, DC. He is a development and agricultural economist with research interests including rural development, agricultural transformation, urbanization, food and nutrition security, and behavioral economics. Most of his research involves impact evaluation methods. Some of his recent studies examine the behavioral and inferential implications of mismeasurement in household surveys. Much of his current research focuses on Africa south of the Sahara and the Middle East and North Africa region. Before joining IFPRI, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Kibrom received his PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Publications

Google Scholar Citations

Publications

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Working Paper

Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

2024Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom
Details

Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia

We revisit the state of smallholder fertilizer demand and profitability in Ethiopia in the face of the recent global fuel–food–fertilizer price crisis triggered by the Russian–Ukraine war and compounded by other domestic supply shocks. We first examine farmers’ response to changes in both fertilizer and food prices by estimating price elasticity of demand. We then revisit the profitability of fertilizer by computing average value–cost ratios (AVCRs) associated with fertilizer application before and after these crises. We use three-round detailed longitudinal household survey data, covering both pre-crisis (2016 and 2019) and post-crisis (2023) production periods, focusing on three main staple crops in Ethiopia (maize, teff, and wheat). Our analysis shows that fertilizer adoption, use, and yield levels were increasing until the recent crises, but these trends seem halted by these crises. We also find relatively large fertilizer price elasticity of demand estimates, ranging between 0.4 and 1.1, which vary across crops and are substantially larger than previous estimates. We find suggestive evidence that households with smaller farm sizes are relatively more responsive to changes in fertilizer prices. We also document that farmers’ response to increases in staple crop prices is not as strong as perceived and hence appears to be statistically insignificant. Finally, we show important dynamics in the profitability of chemical fertilizer. While the AVCRs show profitable trends for most crops, the share of farmers with profitable AVCRs declined following the fertilizer price surge. Our findings offer important insights for policy focusing on mitigating the adverse effects of fertilizer price shocks.

Year published

2024

Authors

Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom

Citation

Assefa, Thomas; Berhane, Guush; Abate, Gashaw T.; and Abay, Kibrom. 2024. 2024. Revisiting the demand and profitability of chemical fertilizers amid global fuel-food-fertilizer crisis: Evidence from Ethiopia. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2263. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Fertilizer Application; Smallholders; Household Surveys; Yield Response Factor; Shock

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region

2024Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul Jr.; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; Akramkhanov, Akmal; Menza, Gianpiero; Anarbekov, Oyture
Details

Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region

There is growing optimism about the potential of digital innovations to support climate action and transform agricultural markets. We review and characterize the landscape of digital innovations in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region. We highlight major success stories associated with the potential of digital innovations to facilitate rural market transformation and support climate action, including adaptation and mitigation. Our desk and landscape review identifies various digital innovations used in Egypt, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. We then create a typology of digital innovations based on seven broad service categorizations: weather and climate; agricultural finance; energy and early warning systems; data and crowdsourcing; market information and market place; extension and advisory information; and supply chain coordination. Three technical and validation workshops supplement this review. Our review shows that digital innovations have the potential to build resilience to climate change and increase market access, but their adoption remains low and varying across contexts. Significant heterogeneity and differences exist across these countries, possibly due to different institutional and regulatory frameworks that guide demand and capacity. We identify several supply and demand-side constraints facing the digital ecosystem in the region. There is the existence of a significant digital divide fueled by gender, literacy gaps, and related socioeconomic and psychosocial constraints. A seeming disconnect also exists between pilots and scale-ups, as most existing digital applications are unsuccessful in expanding beyond the pilot phase.

Year published

2024

Authors

Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul Jr.; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; Akramkhanov, Akmal; Menza, Gianpiero; Anarbekov, Oyture

Citation

Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul Jr.; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; et al. 2024. Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region. Global Food Security 41(June 2024): 100763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100763

Country/Region

Egypt; Morocco; Uzbekistan

Keywords

Africa; Asia; Northern Africa; Central Asia; Innovation; Market Access; Climate Change; Climate-smart Agriculture; Digital Technology

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-3.0-IGO

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100763 Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Journal Article

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Working Paper

Measuring land rental market participation in smallholder agriculture can survey design innovations improve land market participation statistics?

2024Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan; Sebsibie, Samuel
Details

Measuring land rental market participation in smallholder agriculture can survey design innovations improve land market participation statistics?

The emergence of rural land rental markets in Sub-Saharan Africa is recognized as a key component of the region’s ongoing economic transformation. However, the evidence base on land market participation relies on survey-derived measures, which do not always cohere when compared and triangulated, suggesting the possibility of non-trivial measurement error. We report the results of a priming and list experiments designed to shed light on a persistent mystery in rural household survey data from Africa: why there are so many fewer self-reported landlords (renters-out) than tenants (renters-in)? Our design addresses two hypotheses using experimental data from Ethiopia. First, rented-out and rented-in land may be systematically underreported because enumerators and respondents are typically primed to emphasize parcels that are actively managed/cultivated by the household. Second, rented or sharecropped-out land may be systematically underreported because of respondents’ reluctance to acknowledge an activity for which public disclosure may have negative repercussions. We address the first hypothesis with a priming experiment by exposing a random subset of respondents to a nudge that explicitly reminded them to fully account for all land, including rented/sharecropped-in and rented/sharecropped-out. We address the second hypothesis with a double-list experiment, designed to elicit true rates of land renting and sharecropping-out. We find that nudging induces about 4 percentage points increase (or 13% in relative terms) in the share of households participating in renting in or sharecropping-in practices but has negligible effects on reported rates of renting and sharecropping-out. Interestingly, our list experiment indicates much higher revealed rates of renting-out (14-15%) than is reflected in the nominal parcel-roster responses (3%). The magnitude of the latter finding fully explains the apparent difference in renting in versus renting-out rates derived from the regular parcel roster responses. These results indicate that efforts to document land market participation rate and associated impacts must overcome large systematic reporting biases.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abate, Gashaw T.; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan; Sebsibie, Samuel

Citation

Abate, Gashaw Tadesse; Abay, Kibrom A.; Chamberlin, Jordan; and Sebsibie, Samuel. 2024. Measuring land rental market participation in smallholder agriculture can survey design innovations improve land market participation statistics? IFPRI Discussion Papers 2255. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/144206

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Land; Households; Survey Design; Surveys

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Blogs

Grappling with compounding crises in domestic fertilizer markets in Africa: The case of Ethiopia
IFPRI Blog
 | 
January 16, 2024

Grappling with compounding crises in domestic fertilizer markets in Africa: The case of Ethiopia

By Kibrom Abay, Thomas W. Assefa, Guush Berhane, Gashaw Tadesse Abate, and Charlotte Hebebrand

Local effects of global shocks persist.

Fertilizer policies amid global supply and price shocks
IFPRI Blog
 | 
December 11, 2023

Fertilizer policies amid global supply and price shocks

By Kibrom Abay, Jordan Chamberlin, Pauline Chivenge, Charlotte Hebebrand, and David J. Spielman

Global prices have moderated but many countries still face difficulties.

Informing policies with causal impact evaluations: Co-creation and trust matter
IFPRI Blog
 | 
December 06, 2023

Informing policies with causal impact evaluations: Co-creation and trust matter

By Kibrom Abay, Akhter Ahmed, Clemens Breisinger, Naureen Karachiwalla, Sikandra Kurdi, and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse

IFPRI assessments provide key information for policymakers.

Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

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August 2 to 7, 2024

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists

The triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), centred on the theme “Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems” is scheduled from August 2-7, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The conference offers a distinctive platform, providing a golden opportunity for the agricultural academic institutions and researchers to convene in person, exchange knowledge, and actively contribute to the […]

Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Nutrition: The MENA launch of IFPRI’s 2024 Global Food Policy Report
Series/Special Event

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July 8, 2024, 9:00 – 11:30 am

Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Nutrition: The MENA launch of IFPRI’s 2024 Global Food Policy Report

Unhealthy diets are a major driver of all forms of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity. Despite increasing global efforts to address malnutrition, as many as 3 billion people globally cannot afford healthy diets. The need to transform our food systems to ensure sustainable healthy diets for everyone is more urgent than […]

2023 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting
IFPRI at External Event

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July 23 to 25, 2023

2023 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting

Event: July 23, 2023 – 8:30 AM to July 25, 2023 – 4:15 PM EDT. IFPRI is participating in the 2023 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting.

News

March 18, 2022 | In the News

Russia-Ukraine crisis poses a serious threat to Egypt – the world’s largest wheat importer (The Conversation)

The Conversation published an op-ed by IFPRI researchers, Kibrom Abay, Clemens Breisinger, David Laborde Debucquet, Joseph Glauber, and Lina Alaaeldin Abdelfattah. The authors write that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could create a global food security crisis. It is disrupting agricultural production and trade from one of the world’s major exporting regions. This threatens to drive […]

Research

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