Subscribe

Back

Who we are

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

Lilia Bliznashka

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Back

What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

Research topics

Projects and impact

Food Security Portal

Modeling tools

What’s new

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country and Regional Offices

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Agrifood Innovation and Resilience

Vartika Singh

Associate Research Fellow

Follow

Vartika

at:

ORCiD

Bio

Vartika Singh is an Associate Research Fellow in the Agrifood Innovation and Resilience (AIR) Unit.  She works on sustainable food systems, agricultural policy, and equitable climate action with a focus on South Asia. Her research examines pathways for sustainable transformation using integrated assessment modeling to analyze interactions across food, land, water, and climate systems. She specializes in translating complex scientific evidence into actionable policy insights and has extensive experience working at the science–policy interface with governments, international organizations, and global policy processes.

Personal Website

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Opinion Piece

Why India’s food and agricultural systems hold the key to climate action

2026Saha, Ankit; Singh, Vartika; Kumar Ghosh, Ranjan
Details

Why India’s food and agricultural systems hold the key to climate action

The FABLE India team invited policymakers, researchers, and students to step into India’s food and climate future through a FABLE “Serious Game” and expert panels. Participants explored the complex trade-offs in agriculture, discovering how coordinated action, crop diversity, and farmer empowerment can turn challenges into low-emission solutions that also strengthen food security.

Year published

2026

Authors

Saha, Ankit; Singh, Vartika; Kumar Ghosh, Ranjan

Citation

Saha, Ankit; Singh, Vartika; and Kumar Ghosh, Ranjan. 2026. Why India’s food and agricultural systems hold the key to climate action. FABLE Consortium Opinion Piece. https://fableconsortium.org/blog/why-india-s-food-and-agricultural-systems-hold-the-key-to-climate-action/

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Climate Change; Food Systems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Biofuels in India: Trading off climate mitigation with water security goals

2025Singh, Vartika; Mishra, Abhijeet; Alam, Mohammad Faiz; Sulser, Timothy B.; Ringler, Claudia
Details

Biofuels in India: Trading off climate mitigation with water security goals

Biofuels are recognized as a renewable alternative to fossil sources of energy like petroleum or gas. Liquid biofuels, such as bioethanol and biodiesel are blended with petrol or diesel and used for road, aviation and marine transport; they are expected to account for 6% of total renewable transportation fuel use by 2030. Biofuels can not only support a country’s mitigation goals; but also reduce the need for foreign exchange and support agricultural growth. In India, 22% of total energy supply is provided by renewables, most of it from biomass for heating; while biofuels account for less than 1% of transportation energy. Over 90% of bioethanol and biodiesel are produced from food crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybeans, and vegetable oils, with sugarcane serving as the primary feedstock. As a signatory to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), India submitted its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) to the UNFCCC in 2022, emphasizing the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. Achieving this goal is supported, among others, by India’s biofuel policy of 2018 (modified from the original policy of 2009), which aims to achieve blending targets of 20% for ethanol and 5% for biodiesel by 2025.

Year published

2025

Authors

Singh, Vartika; Mishra, Abhijeet; Alam, Mohammad Faiz; Sulser, Timothy B.; Ringler, Claudia

Citation

Singh, Vartika; Mishra, Abhijeet; Alam, Mohammad Faiz; Sulser, Timothy B.; and Ringler, Claudia. 2025. Biofuels in India: Trading off climate mitigation with water security goals. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178762

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Biofuels; Climate Change Mitigation; Climate Change; Water Security; Natural Resources

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Opinion Piece

What Indians eat, and how being unhealthy is easier and cheaper

2025Swaminathan, Soumya; Singh, Vartika; Subramaniam, Sowmiyaa
Details

What Indians eat, and how being unhealthy is easier and cheaper

Food companies must invest in affordable, culturally appropriate, healthy products matching Indian tastes and lifestyles. It requires a whole-of-society engagement.

Year published

2025

Authors

Swaminathan, Soumya; Singh, Vartika; Subramaniam, Sowmiyaa

Citation

Swaminathan, Soumya; Singh, Vartika; and Subramaniam, Sowmiyaa. 2025. What Indians eat, and how being unhealthy is easier and cheaper. Indian Express, first published on December 10, 2025. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/what-indians-eat-and-how-being-unhealthy-is-easier-and-cheaper-10411907/

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Diet; Feeding Preferences; Health; Food Affordability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece

Blogs

Reimagining Indian agriculture for a low-carbon future
Event Post
 | 
December 23, 2025

Reimagining Indian agriculture for a low-carbon future

By Vartika Singh and Arabinda Padhee

Guiding an ongoing transformation.

Groundwater conservation and food security: Navigating pathways to sustainable agriculture
Research Post
 | 
July 15, 2024

Groundwater conservation and food security: Navigating pathways to sustainable agriculture

By Vartika Singh and Claudia Ringler

Tradeoffs must be carefully managed.

Experts identify policy gaps in fertilizer application in India
Event Post
 | 
January 03, 2019

Experts identify policy gaps in fertilizer application in India

By Vartika Singh and Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam

Innovation in the fertilizer industry and in reaching farmers with best practices and knowledge are key to improving fertilizer application and crop health in India.

View all Blogs

Events

IFPRI @ Global Conference on Women in Agri-Food Systems (GCWAS-2026)
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

March 12 to 14, 2026

IFPRI @ Global Conference on Women in Agri-Food Systems (GCWAS-2026)

IFPRI is pleased to be a co-organizer of the Global Conference on Women in Agrifood Systems (GCWAS 2026) that will be held in New Delhi, India from March 12-14, 2026. The Global Conference on Women in Agrifood Systems (GCWAS 2026) will bring together diverse stakeholders, including women leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, farmers, and students, to share […]

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Towards Impact at Scale
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

December 2 to 4, 2025

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Towards Impact at Scale

South Asia continues to face an enduring burden of malnutrition in all its forms—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and a steady increase in overweight and obesity and non-communicable diseases. Over 1 billion people in South Asia cannot afford a healthy diet. While many promising solutions have emerged, translating them into sustained, large-scale impact remains a challenge. This […]

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

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 […]

View all Events

News

June 14, 2024 | Press Release

New study emphasizes tradeoffs between arresting groundwater depletion and food security

A new study published today in Nature Sustainability, reaffirms the world’s growing dependence on depleting groundwater systems.

March 19, 2023 | In the News

MC explains | Maharashtra’s onion crisis: The reasons and the repercussions (Money Control) 

“Maharashtra’s onion farmers, the star producers of India’s perennial kitchen staple, are staring at huge losses. This is likely to have a serious impact on onion harvest going ahead,” writes Money Control in a story on onion prices. Farmers are demanding the lifting of the ban on onion exports. There have also been reports of […]