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Senior climate change researcher Gerald Nelson recently appeared on two radio spots to discuss IFPRI’s climate change research findings. While attending the annual FANRPAN Regional Food Policy Dialogue in Windhoek, Namibia in late August, he spoke with the BBC World Service’s Focus on Africa radio show about the current state of food security in Africa. Read the highlights, below, or listen to […]

What information and knowledge are used in the international development sector? How is this information received, handled, and expressed? What possibilities for change arise in the way we understand our work and communicate with others if we make the best use of informational developments? This seminar will explore the challenges faced by development organizations trying […]

Formulating new rules for agricultural domestic support to reduce international market distortions remains one of the critical challenges facing the multilateral trade system. High food prices in 2008, although dampened by subsequent global developments, brought renewed attention to domestic support in a different way: how can agriculture be strengthened to meet future food demand and […]

In her lecture, Dr. Schaefer-Preuss, Vice President of Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development at the Asian Development Bank, will examine the concept of inclusive growth and its policy relevance to Asia and the Pacific. She will discuss why more and more countries in the region are embracing inclusive growth, what inclusive growth is, and what […]

Senior IFPRI Research Fellow and co-principal of HarvestChoice Stanley Wood is leading a breakout session at the Global Land and Poverty Summit on September 28, 2010 in Washington, DC. The session, “Agriculture – Dirt Poor: Seeking solutions to poverty from the ground up” highlights on-the-ground success stories from the CGIAR and its partners that demonstrate the impact of land-based improvements in the […]

The Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) marked ten years of poverty research with an international conference, “Ten years of ‘war against poverty’. What we have learned since 2000. What we should do 2010-2020,” held in Manchester, UK, September 8-10. Leading poverty researchers and development practitioners met to assess the current ‘state of the art’ in poverty reduction, […]

As the global economic environment changes, so too will diets and the demand for food. To understand the long-term impact of biofortification, researchers must assess how diets and reliance on staples foods will change in the future under a variety of scenarios. To do this, IFPRI economists Msangi and colleagues used a global agricultural market model to simulate […]

“The story of why hunger persists in India is long, sometimes depressing, and full of paradoxes, the central one of course being the fact that the country actually has a booming economy and robust food stocks,” says IFPRI research fellow Purnima Menon. “It’s a story of poor planning, social exclusion, gender inequality, and above all, a government […]

Ephraim Nkonya discussed climate change in Africa on Voice of America’s In Focus, a daily TV magazine program that brings information about Africa, the United States, and the world to viewers across Africa. Click here to see the feature on YouTube. Nkonya, a senior climate change researcher in IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division, recently released the discussion paper Constraints to Fertilizer Use […]

China’s rapid economic growth has been sustained by a seemingly infinite supply of labor streaming from rural to urban areas. Economists and policymakers now debate whether China has passed the Lewis turning point, a shift from labor surplus to shortage that heralds increased wages and a decline in labor-intensive production. A new IFPRI discussion paper, co-authored by […]

Making climate model information accessible with animated maps IFPRI climate-change researcher Gerald Nelson has come up with what the Scientific American calls “a graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide.” Nelson’s work features cutting-edge global climate models and new three-dimensional animations. It is highlighted in “How Much Is Left?,” an article in the magazine’s […]

Cosponsored by IFPRI and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) This conference will focus on sharing experiences on the challenges facing agricultural education and knowledge management systems. It will address issues related to knowledge generated by educational and research institutes for innovative agriculture. The conference will help in devising ways to strengthen educational institutions’ […]

IFPRI and the Indira Gandhi National Open University are hosting “Agriculture Education and Knowledge Management,” a conference, in Agartala, India from August 24-26. The conference will examine methods, applications, and services to link farmers to agricultural education and knowledge management services. Topics of discussion include information and communication technologies, open and distance learning opportunities, and partnering with public […]

A set of seven policy notes (see policy briefs under outputs) recently released by the International Food Policy Research Institute and its collaborators, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Beijing Normal University, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, and Tsinghua University, under the Challenge Program on Water and Food aims to comprehensively […]

Recent events in Russia, one of the largest suppliers of wheat in the world, have raised concern about the current and future price of wheat and wheat-based products. This article briefly examines the issue and determines if there is in fact cause for serious alarm. Download article (PDF 230K)

Historically, many Sub-Saharan African countries have seen their fertilizer subsidy programs waylaid by administrative weaknesses and corruption. Donors and development partners now promote a simpler subsidy process that works through the private sector, and in 2008 Ghana launched a fertilizer subsidy program designed to reflect this approach. Yet an IFPRI discussion paper by postdoctoral fellow Afua Branoah Banful finds that […]

Despite the significant role of “clustering” in China’s rapid industrialization, the survival of millions of small manufacturers that follow this business model is threatened by rising wages and a stronger yen, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Clustering—or the banding together of small businesses, which are part of the same industry, to specialize […]

On July 26th, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) recognized the IFPRI Book, Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, with the 2010 AAEA Quality of Communication award. Rajul Pandya-Lorch accepted the award on behalf of herself and co-editor, David J. Spielman, at the AAEA’s annual meeting in Denver. In 2009, IFPRI, with support from The Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, […]

The missing piece of Africa’s agriculture puzzle A new IFPRI research paper, What is the Irrigation Potential for Africa? A combined biophysical and socioeconomic approach, provides an overview—and offers solutions to—Africa’s irrigation landscape. According to estimates, only six percent of the continent’s farmland is irrigated. In contrast, it’s 37 percent in Asia. As a result, crops in Africa rely on rain—despite […]

Most of the world’s rural households lack the reliable and affordable finance they need to make a living. Smallholder farmers tend to live in remote areas, where retail banking is limited and production risks are high. The recent financial crisis has made it more difficult to gain access to credit and, as a result, hampered […]