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Imagine agriculture in India as a high-tech, highly mechanized venture. Picture a rice farmer taking soil samples with a handheld meter to gauge nutrient and moisture needs, calibrating planting along plot contours withGPS-guided tools.

“If the past is any guide, we will face a barrage of shocks, both natural and man‐made, in the coming years. In just the past five years, we have seen a major earthquake in Haiti; drought in the Horn of Africa; earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis in Japan; and conflicts that have left millions of […]

Africa south of the Sahara must invest in research and development (R&D) without delay if it wants to reduce poverty and food insecurity and meet the challenges of rapid population growth, climate change, and food price volatility. So say IFPRI researchers Nienke Beintema and Gert-Jan Stads in their 2013 Global Food Policy Report chapter, “Is Africa Investing Enough?,” which […]

A farmers’ success depends on more than good weather, healthy soil, and proper seeds. Good farming also involves a series of decisions: how much to plant each season, whether to invest in new crops, which markets to sell to. The right decisions can mean the difference between a profitable harvest and a net loss in […]

This blog story by IFPRI researchers Nicola Cenacchi and Claudia Ringler highlights key messages from Chapter 4 of the 2013 Global Food Policy Report One major outcome of the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations conference was the agreement to develop a set of truly universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to supplant the Millennium Development Goals under the post-2015 development agenda. Although discussions on the final SDGs, […]

The following post by IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan was originally published on his DG Corner blog on April 3, 2014. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest Report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, is a reminder that swift and concrete actions are needed to avert the negative impacts of a changing climate. Key findings from the report on risks to food […]

The following post by Asma Lateef, Director of Bread for the World Institute, is a modified version of a story that originally was published on the Bread for the World Institute’s blog. IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) has become an annual reminder that global food security must remain very much at the top of the development agenda. […]

Note: A modified version of this story originally appeared on Dani Rodrik’s weblog on March 28, 2014. Since the poor spend a greater share of their household incomes on purchasing food, higher food prices must exacerbate poverty, right? Wrong . . . at least over the medium term. In my most recent paper, I find that the opposite […]

The following story was originally published on the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) website. ICARDA is a member of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, supported by the CGIAR Fund. Without access to accurate and comprehensive data, decision makers and researchers struggle to develop appropriate policy agendas – they lack the information they need […]

The theme of this year’s World Water Day (March 22, 2014) is “Water and energy.” IFPRI senior researcher Claudia Ringler highlights the potential role of water markets in the water-energy-food nexus under global climate change Drought and flood events increasingly make the news in every part of the globe. In 2012, China was in the news for severe summer […]

The year 2013 saw a major step forward in global attention to nutrition. Several processes converged: the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement continued to drive the momentum, with 47 countries now having signed up; The Lancet released a new Maternal and Child Nutrition Series of four state-of-the-art evidence reviews; the “1,000 Days” advocacy movement succeeded in mainstreaming the concept in development discourse; […]

When it comes to enacting climate change policy in agriculture, policymakers are often challenged by a range of information and input from different sectors: the research community, the private sector, and the public and policymaking community. What’s more, their policies must account for a range of global forces, from price changes to pressures on land […]

The following story was originally published on IFPRI’s Food Security Portal. Extreme poverty and gender inequality are two of the most daunting challenges faced by the developing world. To tackle these challenges, many policymakers are turning to public works programs. Such programs can help governments provide stable, balanced wages to households in need, while at the […]

This Saturday marks International Women’s Day. The theme this year is “equality for women is progress for all,” and IFPRI’s gender work is essential to its larger mission of achieving food and nutrition security for all and reducing poverty levels throughout the world. Ensuring that food-related policies take women into account is a crucial step toward economic progress […]

In West Bengal, nearly 40 percent of children under the age of five are underweight, despite the country’s strong economic gains in recent years. This paradox indicates that food insecurity continues to pose major challenges for India’s state and national governments. One key to solving the food security puzzle lies in land ownership and titling. Land […]

Amid a future of growing populations, economies, and changing diets, questions arise as to how current practices can meet future food demands. Aquaculture, also known as fish farming, may be key: It is expected that as much as two-thirds of all fish consumed will come from aquaculture by 2030. Fish to 2030: Prospects for Fisheries and […]

The following post by IFPRI Senior Research Fellow David Orden is an excerpt of a story originally published on IFPRI’s Food Security Portal. After more than three years of often tumultuous negotiations, the U.S. Congress has passed a new five-year Farm Bill: the Agricultural Act of 2014. The bill, which President Obama signed into law on February 7, reaffirms the government’s longstanding support […]

With less than two years to go until the expiration of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan noted that “almost 850 million people still suffer from hunger, and two billion are suffering from micronutrient deficiencies, or so-called hidden hunger.” Although strides have been made toward eliminating hunger and malnutrition around the world, […]

The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming to highlight the important global role family and smallholder farmers have in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, achieving sustainable development, and building resilience, especially in rural areas. A key aspect of IFPRI’s research on the challenges faced by family and […]

The World Food Programme presented IFPRIDirector General Dr. Shenggen Fan with a Hunger Hero Award yesterday at the 2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in recognition of his commitment to and leadership in fighting hunger worldwide. Fellow award recipients included Sam Dryden, Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Marc Van […]