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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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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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experts

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Ruth Hill

Director, Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Bio

Ruth Hill is the Director of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit in the Food and Nutrition Policy Department. She was previously a Lead Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank, where she spent a decade leading work on the distributional impacts of climate change, fiscal policy, markets, and institutions. She also led the development of the World Bank’s Rural Income Diagnostics and conducted Poverty Assessments and Systematic Country Diagnostics in East Africa and South Asia. From 2019 to 2021, she was on external service as the Chief Economist at the UK government’s Centre for Disaster Protection. Before joining the World Bank in 2013, Ruth was a Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI, conducting impact evaluations on insurance and market interventions. She has published in the Journal of Development Economics, World Bank Economic Review, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Experimental Economics, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and World Development. She holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford.

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Publications

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Book Chapter

Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk

2025Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Kramer, Berber
Details

Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk

Farm households face many market and production risks to their livelihoods, food security, and economic well-being. Agricultural insurance is intended to help protect households from risk, but many agricultural risks are difficult to insure against and demand for insurance products remains low. This chapter examines how policy-oriented research has encouraged public investment, facilitated farmer use, and improved farmer welfare, and explores how new technologies and approaches are creating opportunities for increasing coverage. Book link: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174108

Year published

2025

Authors

Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Kramer, Berber

Citation

Ceballos, Francisco; Hazell, Peter B. R.; Hill, Ruth Vargas; and Kramer, Berber. 2025. Agricultural insurance: Policies and programs for reducing farmer risk. In Global food policy report 2025: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world, eds. Johan Swinnen and Christopher Barrett. Part Three: Supporting Farmers, Chapter 10, Pp. 245-264. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174303

Keywords

Insurance; Agricultural Insurance; Risk Reduction; Farmers; Economic Policies; Crop Insurance; Weather Index Insurance; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Journal Article

Strengthening producer organizations to increase market access of smallholder farmers in Uganda

2021Hill, Ruth Vargas; Maruyama, Eduardo; Olapade, Markus; Frölich, Markus
Details

Strengthening producer organizations to increase market access of smallholder farmers in Uganda

Smallholder agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is largely exposed to pervasive market failures, translating into missed opportunities and sub-optimal economic behavior. These failures can partly be traced to the importance of economies of scale in procuring inputs and marketing produce, where smallholders face disproportionately high transaction costs. Producer organizations could help to lessen transaction costs; however, only a few farmers in Uganda sell through them. We introduce two interventions aimed at promoting marketing via producer organizations: cash on delivery, and information on sales, and analyze their impacts in an RCT design: We find that providing cash on delivery increases the probability that a member chooses to sell through the group, and hence the volumes bulked by each group. This increase in volumes appears to have enabled groups to secure higher prices for their produce. No significant effect could be found for providing information on sales.

Year published

2021

Authors

Hill, Ruth Vargas; Maruyama, Eduardo; Olapade, Markus; Frölich, Markus

Citation

Hill, Ruth Vargas; Maruyama, Eduardo; Olapade, Markus; and Frölich, Markus. 2021. Strengthening producer organizations to increase market access of smallholder farmers in Uganda. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 50(3): 436-464. https://doi.org/10.1017/age.2021.19

Country/Region

Uganda

Keywords

Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Eastern Africa; Constraints; Agriculture; Smallholders; Market Access; Producer Organizations; Information; Cash Flow

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1017/age.2021.19 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Delayed premium payment, insurance adoption, and household investment in rural China

2020Liu, Yanyan; Chen, Kevin Z.; Hill, Ruth Vargas
Details

Delayed premium payment, insurance adoption, and household investment in rural China

We conduct a randomized controlled trial to examine the impacts of delayed premium payment on insurance uptake and the subsequent investment decisions among smallholder farmers in rural China. Our results show uptake among those with the delayed payment option is 10% higher than and three times as high as among those without the option. We also find a positive impact of delayed premium payment and insurance adoption on household investment in production, especially higher risk activities.

Year published

2020

Authors

Liu, Yanyan; Chen, Kevin Z.; Hill, Ruth Vargas

Citation

Liu, Yanyan; Chen, Kevin Z.; and Hill, Ruth Vargas. 2020. Delayed premium payment, insurance adoption, and household investment in rural China. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 102(4): 1177-1197. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajae.12038

Country/Region

China

Keywords

Asia; Eastern Asia; Insurance; Production; Livestock Production; Investment; Households; Randomized Controlled Trials; Capacity Development; Smallholders; Remuneration; Animal Production

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/ajae.12038 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Events

4th International Conference on Financing for Development
IFPRI at External Event

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June 30 to July 3, 2025

4th International Conference on Financing for Development

IFPRI is pleased to participate in the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4). This conference provides a unique opportunity to reform financing at all levels, including to support reform of the international financial architecture and addressing financing challenges preventing the urgently needed investment push for the SDGs. FFD4 Conference will be held in […]

Fertilizer, soil health, and economic shocks: Policy lessons learned from recent events
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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June 11, 2025, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Fertilizer, soil health, and economic shocks: Policy lessons learned from recent events

Join us for a discussion of key findings from a recent special issue of Food Policy exploring the complex interactions between fertilizer use, soil health management, and economic shocks in various agricultural systems. Governments around the world have long implemented policies to enhance agricultural productivity through inorganic fertilizer application and soil management, yet recent global […]

2025 Global Food Policy Report | Food Policy: Lessons and Priorities for a Changing World
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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May 28, 2025, 9:00 – 12:30 pm

2025 Global Food Policy Report | Food Policy: Lessons and Priorities for a Changing World

Over the last 50 years, the world’s food systems have evolved tremendously amid major economic, environmental, and social changes. Throughout this period, policy research has played a critical role in providing evidence and analysis to inform decision-making that supports agricultural growth, better livelihoods, and improved food security, nutrition, and well-being for all. Please join us […]

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News

June 12, 2025 | Press Release

New special issue of Food Policy examines fertilizer and soil health policies in the wake of global crises

Key findings were presented and discussed during the IFPRI policy seminar on June 11.

September 03, 2024 | Press Release

Ruth Hill joins IFPRI as the new Director of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Unit

Ruth Hill joins IFPRI as the new Director of its Markets, Trade, and Institutions (MTI) Unit, starting September 3, 2024.