IFPRI CGIAR
Subscribe

Back

Who we are

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. 

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country Programs

Research by country and region

Subscribe

Projects

The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) was developed in the early 1990s to explore the long term challenges facing policymakers in reducing hunger and poverty in a sustainable fashion. The IMPACT model has been expanded and improved repeatedly to respond to increasingly complex policy questions and the state-of-the-art of modeling. See documentation of most recent update.

Currently, IMPACT is a network of linked economic, water, and crop models. At its core is a partial equilibrium multi-market economic model, which simulates national and international agricultural markets. The links to water and crop models support the integrated analysis of changing environmental, biophysical, and socioeconomic trends, allowing for in-depth analysis on a variety of critical issues of interest to policymakers at national, regional, and global levels.

Many publications and other resources based on IMPACT analyses are available below. Also available is an online visualization tool providing key results from recent IMPACT analysis in an easy-to-access format.

For more information contact: IFPRI IMPACT model team.

Project duration: 2009 – ongoing

Contact

Keith Wiebe

Donors and funders

CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Wellcome Trust

Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Project partners

CGIAR Centers

Oxford University

Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research

Purdue University

Wageningen University

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

European Commission’s Joint Research Center

University of Florida

Columbia University

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Book Chapter

Dietary quality and nutrition: Past progress, current and future challenges

2024Mahrt, Kristi; Headey, Derek D.; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew; Tauseef, Salauddin
Details

Dietary quality and nutrition: Past progress, current and future challenges

Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the military coup in 2021, Myanmar was experiencing a period of rapid economic growth and transformation in the wake of economic and political liberalization. Between 2005 and 2017, average annual growth in real GDP per capita was 7.8 percent, making Myanmar the fastest growing economy among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Strong growth was accompanied by a halving of the national poverty rate between 2005 and 2017 from 48.2 to 24.8 percent (CSO, UNDP, and World Bank 2019). COVID19 and the economic and political shocks affecting the country since 2021 have led to an economic contraction: 2021 saw an 18 percent drop in real GDP per capita; in 2022, real GDP per capita was estimated to be 15 percent lower than in 2019 (World Bank 2022). The impacts on poverty were even more dire. A high-frequency panel phone survey of mothers and young children in urban Yangon and the rural Dry Zone revealed incomes collapsing during the COVID-19 lockdowns and further income losses in the wake of the February 2021 military takeover (Headey et al. 2022). Prices rose dramatically, with the consumer price index rising by 20 percent between July 2021 and July 2022 (MOPF 2022), while food prices rose by 34 percent over the same period and by about 50 percent between December 2021 and December 2022. Nationally, a variety of different poverty indicators suggest that between 40 and 50 percent of the population was living in poverty in 2022 —poverty rates similar to those found between 2005 and 2010.

Year published

2024

Authors

Mahrt, Kristi; Headey, Derek D.; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew; Tauseef, Salauddin

Citation

Mahrt, Kristi; Headey, Derek; Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew; and Tauseef, Salauddin. 2024. Dietary quality and nutrition: Past progress, current and future challenges. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities, Duncan Boughton, Ben Belton, Isabel Lambrecht, and Bart Minten, eds. Chapter 4, Pp. 79-120. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155148

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Development; Diet Quality; Economic Shock; Governance; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

Resource thumbnail

Book Chapter

The Impact of climate change on agriculture

2024Thomas, Timothy S.
Details

The Impact of climate change on agriculture

Agriculture is an extremely important sector for Africa, providing a large contribution to GDP in most countries and, more importantly, representing a key source of employment in most of the continent—including 52 percent in Africa south of the Sahara in 2022 (International Labour Organization 2024)—while also serving as a bulwark against household food insecurity. Agriculture, however, is the sector most exposed to climate risk, and in years when climate conditions are not favorable, the resulting lower-than-normal agricultural production contributes to increases in food insecurity in almost every country on the continent.

Year published

2024

Authors

Thomas, Timothy S.

Citation

Thomas, Timothy S. 2024. The Impact of climate change on agriculture. In Advancing the climate and bioeconomy agenda in Africa for resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, eds. Getaw Tadesse, Katrin Glatzel, and Moumini Savadogo. Chapter 6, Pp. 64-77. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155084

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Agriculture; Climate Change; Models; Commodities

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Book Chapter

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

An approach for assessing whether agricultural projects help smallholders transition to better livelihood strategies: A Malawian case study

2024Timu, Anne G.; Hazell, Peter; Savastano, Sara
Details

An approach for assessing whether agricultural projects help smallholders transition to better livelihood strategies: A Malawian case study

Agricultural projects typically aim to promote the uptake of project components amongst targeted small farm populations to improve their farm productivity and welfare. While this approach can be an important first step towards improving smallholder livelihoods, it ignores alternative and often superior livelihood options that might arise within the rural transformation process, particularly in commercial agriculture and the rural nonfarm economy. We argue that the design of smallholder projects implemented within regions already undergoing a dynamic transformation and/or projects which have significant value chain components, should be broadened to assist smallholders in making successful transitions to their best livelihood options. For such projects, monitoring and evaluation activities should track livelihood transitions as well as the usual assessments of productivity and welfare outcomes. To help operationalize such an approach, we propose a typology of smallholder livelihood strategies that can track transitions over time and illustrate its use with data from the Sustainable Agricultural Production Program (SAPP), an agricultural value chain project in Malawi. Using available household panel data and quasi-experimental econometric approaches, we find that the project helped smallholders transition out of subsistence farming to market-oriented farming and helped already existing market-oriented farmers remain as such. Even though the project did not have any specific components designed to promote off-farm incomes, nevertheless, it facilitated many farm household transitions to off-farm diversified livelihoods, possibly due to spillover benefits generated within the local nonfarm economy. All SAPP facilitated transitions led to increases in household incomes. We conclude with some lessons for designing, monitoring, and the evaluation of future agricultural projects.

Year published

2024

Authors

Timu, Anne G.; Hazell, Peter; Savastano, Sara

Citation

Timu, Anne G.; Hazell, Peter; and Savastano, Sara. 2024. An approach for assessing whether agricultural projects help smallholders transition to better livelihood strategies: A Malawian case study. Food Policy 128(October 2024): 102728. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102728

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Agricultural Products; Smallholders; Livelihoods; Rural Transformation; Impact Assessment; Small Farms

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102728 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

$15.2 billion in research and innovation investments can put global climate and hunger goals within reach
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 16, 2021

$15.2 billion in research and innovation investments can put global climate and hunger goals within reach

By Uma Lele and Mark Rosegrant

A new report shows how targeted spending can have significant global benefits.

COVID-19-related trade restrictions on rice and wheat could drive up prices and increase hunger
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 15, 2020

COVID-19-related trade restrictions on rice and wheat could drive up prices and increase hunger

By Timothy Sulser and Shahnila Dunston

Modeling suggests export bans intended to buttress domestic food supplies could have wide impacts.

Knowledge for a sustainable food future: New foresight tool examines impact of agricultural investments
IFPRI Blog
 | 
January 07, 2020

Knowledge for a sustainable food future: New foresight tool examines impact of agricultural investments

By Sara Gustafson

How can we feed 10 billion people by 2050? How much and in what ways will climate change impact global food production? What can be done to ensure that the world’s agriculture and food systems remain sustainable in both the short and the long term? To answer these and other critical questions, researchers and development […]

View all Blogs

Events

Launching the Global Foresight for Food and Agriculture Tool
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

December 18, 2019, 10:00 – 11:00 am

Launching the Global Foresight for Food and Agriculture Tool

Join the Food Security Portal (FSP), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) in the launch of the global foresight tool Impacts of Alternative Investment Scenarios. The tool was recently developed by IFPRI’s IMPACT model team and the FSP. The Global Foresight tool provides researchers and […]

2015 Global Landscapes Forum
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

December 5 to 7, 2015

2015 Global Landscapes Forum

The 2015 GLF brings together individuals and organizations that have an impact on land use.

Climate Change & Food Security
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

November 10, 2015, 5:15 – 6:45 pm

Climate Change & Food Security

Challenges and options at global and national scales. Video now available from the Nov 10 Policy Seminar.

View all Events

Donors

CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)
CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Wellcome Trust
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Team members

Keith Wiebe

Keith Wiebe

Senior Research Fellow, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Keith Wiebe

Keith Wiebe

Senior Research Fellow, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Timothy Thomas

Timothy Thomas

Senior Research Fellow, Foresight
and Policy Modeling, Latin America and the Caribbean

Other

Related Projects

Topics/Countries

Related links