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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

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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Innovation Policy and Scaling

Thomas Assefa

Associate Research Fellow

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Bio

Thomas Woldu Assefa is an Associate Research Fellow in the Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit. He is a development economist whose research interests include agricultural technology adoption, rural development, agricultural transformation, behavioral economics, agricultural extension and advisory services, food and nutrition security, and survey methods and measurements. Most of his research involves experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluation methods, and he has extensive experience in designing and implementing large-scale household surveys and randomized controlled trials. In his recent work, Thomas has focused on understanding smallholder farmers’ fertilizer adoption decisions and innovative methods to minimize measurement errors in development economics research.

Before joining IFPRI, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Georgia, as a consultant for the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and as an IMMANA postdoctoral research fellow in a program administered by Tufts University. Thomas received his MSc from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and holds a PhD from the University of Georgia, US.

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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Book Chapter

Ethiopia [In Agricultural Extension]

2020Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; Assefa, Thomas
Details

Ethiopia [In Agricultural Extension]

This chapter takes stock of the provision of extension services in line with the country’s development and suggests ways such services might contribute to accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction in the years ahead. Ethiopia has invested significantly in its extension system, in line with national policies that place a high priority on boosting agricultural production and productivity. Ethiopia is considered a leading country globally in the provision of extension services to farmers and has the highest extension agent-to-farmer ratio of any country. Ethiopia presents an interesting case, as it is one of few African countries to have placed agriculture at the forefront of its economic development policies, having invested heavily in the sector over the past two decades. Unlike many countries where private-sector extension services expanded following drastic public funding cuts to their extension systems in the 1980s and 1990s (Zhou and Babu 2015), Ethiopia’s extension system remains predominantly public.

Year published

2020

Authors

Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; Assefa, Thomas

Citation

Berhane, Guush; Ragasa, Catherine; Abate, Gashaw T.; and Assefa, Thomas. 2020. Ethiopia. In Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries, eds. Kristin Davis; Suresh Chandra Babu; and Catherine Ragasa. Part 2: Performance of Extension Systems, Chapter 6, Pp. 185-223. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293755_06

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Advisory Services; Agricultural Extension; Technology; Extension Systems; Livelihoods; Agricultural Development; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293755_06 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Book Chapter

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Journal Article

Assessing community health information systems: Evidence from child health records in food insecure areas of the Ethiopian highlands

2020Hirvonen, Kalle; Berhane, Guush; Assefa, Thomas
Details

Assessing community health information systems: Evidence from child health records in food insecure areas of the Ethiopian highlands

Objectives: This study assessed the completeness of child health records maintained and collected within community health information system in Ethiopia. Methods: A household listing was carried out in 221 enumeration areas in food insecure areas of Ethiopia to determine the presence of a child less than 24-months. This list of children was then compared against the information stored at the local health posts. A household survey was administered to a sample of 2155 households that had a child less than 24-months of age to assess determinants and consequences of exclusion from the health post registers. Results: Out of the 10,318 children identified during the listing, 36% were found from the health post records. Further analysis based on the household survey data indicated that health posts that had adopted nationally recommended recordkeeping practices had more complete records (p < 0.01) and that children residing farther from health posts were less likely to be found from the registers (p < 0.05). Mothers whose child was found from the registers were more likely to know a health extension worker (p < 0.01), had a contact with one (p < 0.01), and their child was more likely to have received growth monitoring (p < 0.05). Conclusions for Practice: The incompleteness of the data collected at the health posts poses a challenge for effective implementation of the national health extension program and various complementary programs in Ethiopia.

Year published

2020

Authors

Hirvonen, Kalle; Berhane, Guush; Assefa, Thomas

Citation

Hirvonen, Kalle; Berhane, Guush; and Assefa, Thomas. 2020. Assessing community health information systems: Evidence from child health records in food insecure areas of the Ethiopian highlands. Maternal and Child Health Journal 24(8): 1028–1037. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-02943-1

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Health; Child Health; Assessment; Health Services; Food Security; Information

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-02943-1 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article