IFPRI Briefs

A team of researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) collaborated to produce this ...

The facts: Child malnutrition in India: India is home to 40 percent of the world’s malnourished children and 35 percent of the developing world’s low-birth-weight infants; every year 2.5 million children die in India, accounting for ...

During the last 25 years, African policymakers have been bombarded with often conflicting advice on agricultural development strategy from an increasing array of international development agencies. In this brief, Christopher Delgado gives a ...

Si se espera alcanzar las metas fundamentales de mitigación y adaptación del cambio climático, la agricultura debe ser parte integral de las negociaciones internacionales sobre clima. El cambio climático y la agricultura están conectados en ...

Poverty is a rural phenomenon in most of the developing world, especially the low-income developing countries. The rural poor make up more than 75 percent of the poor in many Sub-Saharan African and Asian countries. Accelerated public investments ...

For many years, governments and donors have promoted the generation of knowledge and technological innovations that improve farming and plant genetic resources in developing countries. Because of the “public good” nature of ...

This report presents an overview of the Philippine national agricultural R&D system in the context of the country’s wider national science and technology (S&T) policy. The discussion includes institutional developments and recent ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 2 Higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, and changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events will have significant consequences for food production and food security. However, the frequency of ...

Agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked. Agriculture is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (with forestry contributing an additional 19 percent), compared ...

Earlier briefs in this series make the case that there is added value for the agricultural and health sectors in working more closely together to address problems of human well-being that fall at the intersection of the two sectors. Yet the ...

Agriculture is fundamental to achieving nutrition goals: it produces the food, energy, and nutrients essential for human health and well-being. Gains in food production have played a key role in feeding growing and malnourished populations. Yet ...

Like many other regional groups, the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)—Bangladesh , Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—have taken steps toward forming a regional free ...

To improve the ability of farmers in developing countries to reduce the burden of foodborne illness, government agencies need to take the following steps: (1) Implement a farm-to-table approach to agricultural health by focusing efforts on the ...

Malaria, schistosomiasis (bilharzia), and Japanese encephalitis are the major vector-borne diseases whose increase or decrease can be attributed to agricultural water development (see table). Others include dengue fever, yellow fever, and ...

Like many other regional groups, the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)—Bangladesh , Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—have taken steps toward forming a regional free ...

For the practice of agroforestry to yield its full potential, it needs to bring health and nutrition to the fore. The figure presents a simple conceptual framework of agroforestry, health, and nutrition linkages that focuses on five pathways ...

Using both national-sample and program-level census survey data, we evaluate the distributional power of Mexico’s Programa Nacional de Educacion, Salud y Alimentacion (PROGRESA) transfers using the so-called distributional ...

“This study examines the poverty reduction implications of the introduction of three different agricultural technologies by government and NGOs in three rural sites across Bangladesh. The first is new vegetable seeds developed by AVRDC ...

The urban population in the developing world is expected to double to 4 billion by 2025, accounting for about 90 percent of global population growth….Managing the ongoing rapid urban growth in developing countries, and avoiding the bleak ...

This paper aims to empirically identify migrants’ assimilation process by examining their wage dynamics in one urban labor market of a developing country: Bangkok, Thailand. Although prior studies on migration highlight the effects of ...

A methodology to produce disaggregated estimates of inequality is implemented in three developing countries: Ecuador, Madagascar, and Mozambique. These inequality estimates are decomposed into progressively more disaggregated spatial units and ...

“This study attempts to analyze changing patterns of land transfers and schooling investments by gender over three generations in customary land areas of Ghana’s Western Region. Although traditional matrilineal inheritance rules deny ...

The objective of this report is to summarize progress towards measurement of selected childcare and feeding practices, and to discuss the feasibility and usefulness of these measurements in research and program contexts. This is the third in a ...

“…IFPRI examined the effectiveness of community-based targeting following three recent emergencies: the 1998 floods in Bangladesh; the 2002 drought in Ethiopia; and the 2001-02 failed maize harvest in Malawi.” — ...

One of 8 briefs in Research at a Glance — Genetic Resource Policies: Promising crop biotechnologies for smallholder farmers in East Africa. Briefs 19-26

“…IFPRI examined the effectiveness of community-based targeting following three recent emergencies: the 1998 floods in Bangladesh; the 2002 drought in Ethiopia; and the 2001-02 failed maize harvest in Malawi. All three cases show ...

In many countries, economic considerations are an important factor in government decisionmaking on the introduction of genetically modified (GM) products. However, reliable information on their actual or likely economic impact is often lacking. ...

Ghana Study Case Agriculture in Ghana is characterized by low yields and productivity, which are compounded in the long run by production shocks due to environmental stresses such as drought, pests, and diseases. Vegetables are more ...

This paper reviews current knowledge and experience with food-based approaches to reduce vitamin A and iron deficiencies. It presents a review of recently published literature, highlights some of the lessons learned, and identifies knowledge gaps ...

The Ghana Strategy Support Program (GSSP) aims to build the capacity of agricultural stakeholders in Ghana to develop and implement agricultural and rural devel-opment policy reforms. This summary outlines findings from an IFPRI-commissioned ...

The interactions between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition insecurity are becoming clearer as research fills knowledge gaps. To address these gaps, different actors (from individual household members to national policymakers) need tools and ...

This paper examines attrition in the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (1993-1998) and assesses the extent of attrition bias for a specific empirical example. The analysis shows that 1993 first round nonresponse is largely unrelated to ...

Growing concern over health risks associated with food products has prompted close examination of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in industrialized countries. Standards are employed to protect human health from toxic additives, ...

IFPRI is collaborating with CARE-Bangladesh to provide research and support for its SHAHAR project for improving urban livelihoods. This Country Report addresses the research focus, under Project Leader, James Garrett, and the key findings and ...

IFPRI is collaborating with CARE-Bangladesh to provide research and support for its SHAHAR project for improving urban livelihoods. This Country Report addresses the research focus, under Project Leader, James Garrett, and the key findings and ...

This is a review of the options for capacity strengthening for policy research, an overview of IFPRI’s work in this area, and a summary of the best practices in capacity strengthening, as shown by experience.

One of 8 briefs in Research at a Glance — Genetic Resource Policies: Promising crop biotechnologies for smallholder farmers in East Africa. Briefs 19-26

This brief delineates two broad categories for bioenergy development - the exploitation of existing agricultural wastes and the establishment of energy plantations-and suggests high-priority steps for developing bioenergy in ways that benefit the ...

Given Europe’s high import demand for fuel and its commitments to reduce CO2 emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, political pressure to implement strategies for the use of renewable energy is ever increasing. Thus, Europe aspires to use ...

Global food production, so far, has increased continuously because cropped area has expanded and productivity per unit area has increased. In some regions of the world, however, there is little scope for further spatial expansion of agriculture. ...

This brief summarizes a study on commercial risks and the role of GM-free private standards in biosafety decisionmaking in developing countries. The findings are used to suggest a straightforward decisionmaking framework to help separate real ...

Briefs 1-6 of the Research at a Glance series, “Biotechnology and genetic resource policies” List of Briefs: 1. Policy, National Regulation, and International Standards for GM Foods. / Peter W. B. Phillips 2. Biotechnology, ...

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of ethanol, a biofuel used mainly in automobiles as an additive or alternative to gasoline. In the mid-1970s the country undertook a major program to produce ethanol, and since then the industry has ...

Currently, three-quarters of the world’s extremely poor—800 million people—live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and other rural jobs for their livelihoods. In Africa, the pervasive poverty in rural areas is often blamed on the fact that ...

“This brief examines the economy-wide impact of implementing and financing a universal or basic income grant (BIG) in South Africa. The various financing scenarios suggested by the proponents of the grant are presented, and these are ...

The beef industry provides a window on food safety issues in China’s rapidly developing economy. This industry provides particularly useful insights because the government has targeted it for development and because it is dominated by ...

As awareness grows about food safety issues, the need for countries to provide greater assurance about the safety and quality of food also grows….This brief reviews (1) how India utilizes the international framework for food safety ...

Mycotoxins are toxic chemical compounds produced by molds, which can have important consequences in human and animal health… The economic consequences of the presence of mycotoxins in food, feed, and agricultural crops can be severe. In ...

Food safety standards that developed countries impose on developing-country exports have sometimes created a barrier to market access. But in Latin America today, the standards set by supermarkets in the region affect local producers far more ...

By the end of the 1970s, the Bangladesh seafood processing industry had expanded rapidly. But sanitary facilities, technology adaptation, and adequate training did not keep pace. Shrimp exports suffered in the late 1970s, and the U. S. Food and ...

Land tenure institutions in customary land areas of Sub-Saharan Africa have been evolving towards individualized ownership. Communal land tenure institutions aim to achieve and preserve the equitable distribution of land (and hence, income) ...

Achieving food security has been the overriding goal of agricultural policy in India. The introduction and rapid spread of high-yielding rice and wheat varieties in the late 1960s and early 1970s resulted in steady output growth for foodgrains. ...

This study explores the impact of changes in environmental conditions on intrahousehold labor allocation to the collection of environmental goods such as fuelwood and leaf fodder for a sample of rural Nepali households. Using household-level ...

This study investigates the effects of childcare on work and earnings of mothers in poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City. Recognizing that mothe’rs work status may depend on the availability of childcare, decisions to participate in the ...

Millions of the rural poor now participate in collaborative forest management schemes under a variety of tenurial and organizational arrangements.We examine those arrangements and ask whether local people have indeed gained more access to ...

Issues concerning farmers with small land holdings figure prominently in global discussions about poverty reduction, as the majority of the world’s poor belong to such households. Most of these households are linked to the market in one way or ...

Policies to devolve responsibility for natural resource management to local bodies have become widespread in the past 20 years. Although the theoretical advantages of user management have been convincing and the impetus for devolution policies ...

“Dans le monde entier, les agriculteurs et les organisations de développement local utilisent et encouragent de nombreuses de technologies afin d’augmenter la production alimentaire mais le coût élevé des engrais chimiques et autres ...

En el mundo en via de desarrollo, 200 millones de niños menores de cinco años, están mal nutridos. La mayoria de estos niños viven en la pobreza absoluta, nunca han tenido suficiente comida desde su nacimiento y jamás van a terminar una educación ...

“Yamauchi and Nishiyama are interested in the relationship between local inequality and the quality of human capital investment and growth. In this paper, they examine the impact of unequal income distribution on the ability of a community ...

”.” — From text

In this paper we investigate whether a conditional cash transfer program such as the Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) can simultaneously combat the problems of low school attendance and child work. PROGRESA is a new ...

“For more than two centuries, proponents and critics of an open global economy have debated whether the free flows of goods, services, and capital make the world more peaceful and food secure or instead exacerbate inequalities and ...

Brief 6 of the Research at a Glance series, “Biotechnology and Genetic Resource Policies”.

This paper synthesizes the results of five studies using household panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mali, Mexico and Russia, which examine the extent to which households are able through formal and/or informal arrangements to insure their ...

This paper investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife. Using detailed household data from rural Ethiopia, the authors show that assets brought to marriage, ownership of assets, control ...

The Nicaraguan Red de Proteccion Social (RPS) suggests that successful safety nets can protect the most affected by crisis without abandoning conditionality.

Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for five Latin American countries (seven data sets) were used to explore the feasibility of creating a composite feeding index and to examine the association between feeding practices and child ...

Brief 20 of the Research at a Glance series, Genetic Resource Policies: Promising Crop Biotechnologies for Smallholder Farmers in East Africa: Bananas and Maize.

Is the agricultural sector in developing countries now facing the same neglect that it did in industrial countries some 200 years ago? This concern arises because agricultural investments are declining and donors are paying scant attention to ...

Global population in the year 2020 will be a third higher than in 1995, but demand for food and fiber will rise by an even higher proportion, as incomes grow, diets diversify, and urbanization accelerates. However this demand is met, population ...

Poverty profiles are a useful way of summarizing information on the levels of poverty and the characteristics of the poor in a society. They also provide us with important clues to the underlying determinants of poverty. However, important as ...

The promise of bioenergy is that it may help cope with rising energy prices, address environmental concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, and offer new income and employment to farmers and rural areas. In principle, there is a high degree of ...

IFPRI and FANRPAN outlined and managed a highly participatory process involving high-level policymakers, senior representatives of a range of stakeholder agencies, and respected scientific leaders, who came together for an integrated series of ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 4 Many opportunities exist for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through better management of trees and soils. There is potential for both direct mitigation through better management of carbon in agricultural ...

How many microfinance institutions (MFIs) exist in the developing world? What are their current performances? In 1999, an International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) team on microfinance conducted a survey on MFIs in Asia, Africa, and ...

High urbanization rates in Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women’s participation in the labor force and the number of households headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare alternatives are thus becoming ...

Economic, political, and social changes have altered the landscape of both urban and rural areas—as well as the interactions between the two—faster than perceptions and policies can keep up. Policymakers, for instance, often view rural and ...

“While nutritional intake in early childhood provides the basis for a child’s health capital, investments in schooling provide the basis for a child’s knowledge capital. That store of knowledge, in turn, will eventually be ...

After more than a decade of rapid economic growth, many East and Southeast Asian countries face the prospect of a long economic slump, and the poor in these countries face a reversal of their halting climb out of poverty. Recovery from the crisis ...

This brief describes research in Bangladesh. The brief argues that poor diet quality and low bioavailability of dietary iron are important factors contributing to iron deficiency anemia (IDA). Nevertheless, can food-based interventions be ...

The programme has a substantial positive impact on the diet of children. It also complements the basic livelihood strategies of poor urban women working outside the home.

This paper presents a new methodological framework for measuring the level of household access to credit. It provides an analytical framework for examining the determinants of household credit limits and derives implications on information needed ...

“To end hunger and prevent the recurrence of famine and starvation, we need to take the following steps: invest in public health, child nutrition, education, women’s and girls’ social status, and other components of human ...

With a per capita income of only about 20 percent of the African average, Ethiopia is one of the world’s poorest countries. More than 85 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas, where agriculture is the main economic activity and ...

The authors set out a general equilibrium model for the evaluation of a domestically financed transfer program, which helps to combine the results from a computable general equilibrium model with disaggregated household data.Using a Mexican cash ...

Wealthy countries’ agricultural subsidies have also created unfair competition. African farmers not only have limited access to rich-country agricultural markets, but they also face unfair competition in their own domestic markets from ...

In this brief, we learn that “combining technical innovations with collective action initiatives has been shown to lead to substantial farmer benefits. A number of farmer-led research and extension (FRE) approaches incorporate collective ...

Urban expansion and issues of food supply and distribution to and in the cities have four major consequences for urban food security. The first is the competition between demands for land needed for housing, industry, and infrastructure and land ...

About 10 million people in southern Africa-Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe-are experiencing famine or the threat of famine.The immediate causes of the current crisis are drought, flooding, and low levels of crop ...

“Fish production is an important source of livelihoods among the world’s poor, and fish consumption has long been known to have nutritional benefits. The dynamics of the world’s fisheries-and fish consumption-are changing, ...

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a comprehensive study of the efficiency of food distribution in food aid-supported programs in Bangladesh. The capacity and efficiency of the food distribution system was assessed ...

Creating a hunger-free world in the 21st century will require prevention and resolution of violent conflicts, as well as a concerted effort to rebuild war-torn societies. Between 1970 and 1990 violent conflicts led to hunger and reduced food ...

“This brief reviews the incidence and health consequences of biological pathogens in developing countries, as these are the most important food safety risks in those parts of the world, and provides an overview of possible methods ...

Food safety issues have attracted international attention because they play an increasingly important role in determining whether developing countries have access to export markets.At the same time, food suppliers in developing countries face the ...

“Agricultural advisory services play an important role in supporting the use of the agricultural sector as an engine of pro-poor growth and enabling small farmers to meet new challenges, such as accessing export markets, adopting ...

This paper summarizes findings from a formative research study conducted in Haiti to develop a behavior change communication (BCC) strategy to improve infant and child feeding practices and to reduce childhood malnutrition. It describes the ...

Brief 21 in the Research at a Glance series— Genetic Resource Policies: Promising crop biotechnologies for smallholder farmers in East Africa: Bananas and Maize.

Practitioners may ask why they should address gender issues in development. Aside from the obvious answer—that gender equality is a basic human right and in that sense is integral to development—many disparities in development outcomes stem from ...

This paper assesses the impact of prime-age mortality on human capital formation and labor markets by examining, first, the impact on adolescents, who may leave school in order to enter the labor market, and second, the impact on adult females ...

Meeting world food needs in the year 2020 will depend even more than it does now on the capabilities and resources of women. Women are responsible for generating food security for their families in many developing countries, particularly in ...

Briefs 13 - 18 of the Research at a Glance series, “Genetic Resource Policies: What is Diversity Worth to Farmers?” 13- Introduction: On-Farm Genetic Resources and Economic Change 14- Traits and Taxonomies—Building Blocks for ...

Urban Challenges to Food and Nutrition Security

In the Accra Urban Food and Nutrition Study, IFPRI collaborated with the Noguchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research and the World Health Organization to examine the nature of urban poverty and how it relates to food insecurity and ...

This brief is based on a presentation by the two authors in Amsterdam on September 27, 2006, in celebration of World Food Day on global mechanisms to reduce hunger, and on subsequent dialogues. A world in which people are food secure is a ...

Strong upward trends and increased variability in global food prices during the past two years have led to concern that hunger and poverty will increase across the world. At the same time, rising food prices provide an incentive and opportunity ...

Whose responsibility is it to assure food security in an age of globalization? Is improved governance at the international level our greatest need, or are governance deficits most severe at the national level? When national governments lag in ...

Will developing countries adopt policies that promote the planting of genetically modified (GM) crops, or will they select policies that slow the spread of the GM crop revolution? The evidence so far is mixed. In some prominent countries such as ...

The “Green Revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s produced an unprecedented growth in agriculture in developing countries. The authors of this Brief examine the Green Revolution’s impacts on agricultural production and its social ...

IFPRI evaluated the Government of Guatemala’s Community Day Care Centers Program to determine its effects on children’s nutrition and on their mothers’ wages and employment opportunities. This study provides data on the ...

“This discussion paper examines trends in inequality in Mozambique, which in 1996 was one of the world’s poorest countries. In fact, it was so poor that mean per capita consumption was actually below the absolute poverty line. Between ...

The health and nutritional status of women is important for both the quality of their lives and the survival and healthy development of their children. Adequate nutrition is a human right for all, and the two-way link between nutritional ...

The current food price crisis has received widespread attention, but discussions to date have largely overlooked the gender dimensions of the crisis. More than 15 years of rigorous research on gender and intrahousehold resource allocation suggest ...

I. ...

“To effectively address the interactions between HIV/AIDS and food insecurity, there’s a need to fill knowledge gaps. strengthen capacity, and learn-by-doing in partnership with people who are directly affected.” — ...

Die vielschichtigen Ursachen der gegenwärtigen Krise im Bereich der Nahrungsmittelproduktion und Landwirtschaft erfordern eine umfassende globale Antwort. Angesichts der dringend benötigen Hilfe besteht der erste Maßnahmenkatalog - ein ...

This paper uses project and household data to examine the ability of 100 or so public works projects in Western Cape Province, South Africa, to target benefits-both direct and indirect-to those living below the poverty line. We find that public ...

Trade liberalization is expected to act positively on development and poverty reduction… The traditional argument in favor of a positive relationship between liberalization and poverty reduction focuses on… [key] linkages. A large ...

This paper presents the main findings of a quantitative evaluation of the Red de Protección Social (RPS), a conditional cash transfer program in Nicaragua, against its primary objectives. These included supplementing income to increase household ...

Numerous studies indicate that agricultural production is sensitive to climate variability, and lack of infrastructure in developing countries increases vulnerability to extreme climate events. In Ethiopia, the historical climate record indicates ...

The premise of a rights-based approach to ensuring adequate food is empowering poor people and those who are food insecure. Empowerment is integral to any strategy that moves away from the benevolence model of food aid and instead emphasizes ...

Following implementation of the Uruguay Round agreement, reductions in price support programs, mainly in developed countries, will lead to reductions in food surpluses and stocks. As the developing countries open up their markets to world price ...

This paper examines the impact of wheat transfers and cash incomes on wheat consumption and wheat markets. Using propensity score- matching techniques, the total marginal propensity to consume (MPC) for wheat is, on average, 0.33, ranging from ...

“The paper examines, taking into account the urban-rural divides, the changes and welfare implications of income diversification in Zimbabwe following macroeconomic policy changes and droughts of the early 1990s. Data from two comparable ...

What can be done to increase the effective participation of women in food and nutrition security in Africa? This brief advocates a two-pronged approach. First, eradicate discrimination against women, and second, promote catch-up by implementing ...

This paper examines the equity implications of the evolution of land rights from communal land tenure to individualization in customary land areas in Western Sumatra. This brief sets forth policy implications: Preference for sons in the ...

Brief 5 of the Research at a Glance series, “Biotechnology and Genetic Resource Policies”.

“Innovation systems perspectives on agricultural research and technological change are fast becoming a popular approach to the study of how societies generate, disseminate, and utilize knowledge, and how such systems can be strengthened for ...

“This study aims to assess the value of poverty mapping to public-works projects undertaken by the World Food Programme (WFP) with the government of Malawi in its Food for Assets and Development (FFASD) program….Poverty mapping is a ...

Ethiopia possesses abundant water resources and hydropower potential, yet less than 5 percent of irrigable land in the Blue Nile basin has been developed for food production, and more than 80 percent of Ethiopians lack access to electricity. ...

The challenge for agriculture over the coming decades will be to meet the world’s increasing demand for food in a sustainable way. Declining soil fertility and mismanagement of plant nutrients have made this task more difficult. In this ...

The recent food crisis, combined with the energy crisis and emerging climate-change issues, threatens the livelihoods of millions of poor people as well as the economic, ecological, and political situation in many developing countries. Progress ...

This study explores the intrahousehold impact of transfer of modern agricultural technology from a gender perspective. The data suggest that group-based programs targeting women have a greater potential to address gender relations within the ...

It has long been known that good nutrition is essential to children’s physical and cognitive development, but recent evidence sheds new light on the optimal timing of interventions to improve child nutrition and the long-term effects of ...

L’augmentation de la productivité agricole et de la sécurité alimentaire ne peut se concevoir sans l’aide de technologies nouvelles et améliorées ainsi que de leur large dissémination, processus qui empruntera la voie des institutions ...

Governments are now shifting their role from direct management of irrigation systems to regulation of the water sector, provision of support services to water user associations, and capacity building among water user associations and irrigation ...

“Recent research has shown that improving women’s decisionmaking power relative to men’s within households leads to improvements in a variety of well-being outcomes for children. In South Asia, where the influence of ...

This brief provides an overview of the major investment trends in agricultural research in Central America since the early 1980s, drawing on a new set of data developed through a comprehensive survey by the International Food Policy Research ...

to them.

Para disminuir el hambre en una época de globalización, ¿deberíamos acaso mejorar primero la gobernabilidad al nivel global o nacional? Mejorar la gobernabilidad a nivel global frecuentemente se presume ser de mayor necesidad. Sin embargo, en el ...

El papel de la mujer en la economía se ha subestimado con frecuencia y su trabajo en la agricultura ha sido invisible por mucho tiempo. Las autoridades normativas, pese a haber en focado los programas de población, salud y nutrición en la mujer ...

The authors use individual observations from a panel of families during the period of the peso crisis in Mexico to investigate whether and how labor market shocks, as proxied by changes in the gender- and age-specific unemployment rates in the ...

By the year 2020 land degradation may pose a serious threat to food production and rural livelihoods, particularly in poor and densely populated areas of the developing world. Appropriate policies are required to encourage land-improving ...

This study attempts to identify the impacts of land tenure institutions on the efficiency of farm management based on a case study of paddy rice and upland cinnamon production in the Kerinci Valley in West Sumatra, where most of ...

Customary land areas in Western Ghana have been evolving towards individualized ownership. Inherited and temporarily allocated family lands are being transferred to wives and children as inter-vivos gifts, to be planted with cocoa. Giving gifts ...

The programme has a substantial positive impact on the diet of children. It also complements the basic livelihood strategies of poor urban women working outside the home.

In Africa and elsewhere, safety nets were promoted in the 1980s as a response to the (presumably short-term) adverse effects of structural adjustment. Though some safety nets had a developmental component, safety nets are still largely associated ...

“”This paper uses longitudinal data from 15 villages in rural Ethiopia to explore the nature and consequences of these links. It addresses the following questions: (1) What are the links between rural households and local urban ...

A team of researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) collaborated to produce this ...

“With urban dwellers purchasing 80 percent or more of their food, understanding urban employment is critical to designing policies and programs to address urban hunger and poverty. Reviewing the literature, but also using data from ...

According to the author, “Given the vital importance of public goods in providing basic services necessary for alleviating poverty and in managing the local natural resource base for sustainable development, this brief offers an approach to ...

Degradation of natural resources has be come a global probelem that threatens the livelihood of millions of poor people. Many promising technologies for natural resource management are available to address these problems, but farmers and others ...

“During the first half of the 20th century, African farmers transformed maize from a minor imported foodcrop into the continent’s principal staple food. In the second half of the century, newly independent governments launched support ...

In 1990 a total of 780 million people out of 4 billion in the developing world are living on diets that are not sufficient to maintain a healthy life, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This implies ...

In the next 25 years, South Asia’s food requirements are likely to double, while its natural resource base is likely to shrink. The subcontinent, which carries 21 percent of the world’s population on just 3 percent of its land area, ...

“This study analyzes work, childcare arrangements, and earnings of mothers in the poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City and Greater Accra, Ghana, two urban areas where formal- and informal-sector work differ in importance. Unlike previous ...

This brief analyzes the past successes and recent challenges of South Africa’s trade and marketing policies on genetically modified (GM) products, with the aim of drawing lessons for countries that are designing their biosafety systems.

Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, which is dominated by smallscale, mixed crop, and livestock farming, is the mainstay of the country’s economy. It constitutes more than half the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), generates ...

“Contrairement aux prévisions communément admises quant à l’aggravation du déclin économique de l’Afrique, une récente étude présente une vision alternative plus positive de l’avenir de ce continent. De nouveaux ...

For many of the world’s poor, public safety-net programs are the only hope for a life free from chronic poverty and undernutrition. But the proper combination of incentives and support can be difficult to achieve. The International Food ...

Agricultural production remains the main source of livelihood for rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing employment to more than 60 percent of the population and contributing about 30 percent of gross domestic product. With likely ...

In looking toward 2020, one of the most severe problems to be faced is an impending shortage of adequate supplies of fresh water essential for drinking and for growing crops. The Middle East, where a few waterways serve large areas of land ...

Each year millions of people in low-income countries uproot themselves from rural homes to take their chances in a new setting. But who are these migrants? Where do they go and why? What becomes of individuals and families when ...

What is at stake in the standoff between the United States and Europe over agriculture in the Doha Round of trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO)? What impact would an agreement based on greater or lesser levels of ambition have on ...

The brief discusses the growing body of literature [that] suggests that men and women allocate resources under their control in systematically different ways. Studies have examined the effect of women’s income on household expenditure ...

Mycotoxins are produced by fungi, commonly known as mold. These toxins can develop during production, harvesting, or storage of grains, nuts, and other crops. Mycotoxins are among the most potent mutagenic and carcinogenic substances known. They ...

“Given the number of undernourished people in the developing world and the increasingly complex risks to food security, policymakers are faced with an enormous agenda. Freeing people from hunger will require more and better-targeted ...

“In its first two years, 2000-02, the Red de Protección Social - Ministry of the Family (RPS) improved the nutrition and education of approximately 10,000 of Nicaragua’s poorest families. Operating as a pilot project in six ...

Upon arrival in a new location, migrants collect information from a variety of sources: their own resources, job postings, and informal networks of friends and neighbors, including those who have moved to the destination from the same place of ...

Este conjunto de resúmenes es el resultado del trabajo de varias personas y refleja la colaboración internacional promovida dentro del SCN. Los resúmenes están diseñados para facilitar el diálogo entre los profesionales de la nutrición y del ...

“This paper explores the possibility of applying.. methods… known as small-area estimation to the study of children’s nutritional status as measured by anthropometry. This research in Tanzania is the first attempt to map ...

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the agricultural sector is one of the most hazardous to health worldwide. Agricultural work possesses several characteristics that are risky for health: exposure to the weather, close ...

“About 167 million children under five years of age -almost one-third of the developing world’s children -are malnourished. If they survive childhood, many of these children will suffer from poorer cognitive development and lower ...

Good health and productive agriculture are both essential in the fight against poverty. In a rapidly changing world, agriculture faces many challenges, both old (natural resource constraints, extreme weather conditions, and agricultural pests) ...

This brief defines property rights and collective action and discusses the links to sustainability of natural resource management and agricultural systems and to poverty reduction, as well as the implications for policy and practice.

Brief prepared for the Annual General Meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, Nairobi, October 29, 2003

The paradoxical nature of Asia’s current food situation makes it doubly challenging to create effective and long-term strategies for alleviating poverty and malnutrition in the region. On the one hand, life has improved for many Asians, ...

This paper is based on community-level data from 188 villages in rural Madagascar. The survey that was conducted in 1997 made extensive use of long-term recall questions ascertaining changes during the past 10 years in rice yields, wages, ...

IFPRI analyzed Peru’s comedores populares (community kitchens) and associated programs to .identify lessons for future urban projects. Under Project Leader, James Garrett, IFPRI’s study reviewed the operational experiences of PRODIA ...

In their comprehensive paper, Montague Yudelman, Annu Ratta, and David Nygaard examine the key issues with regard to pest management and food production over the coming decades. They draw attention to the lack of adequate information on the ...

Urbanization, trade liberalization, agroindustrialization, and the rise of supermarkets are among the trends providing farmers in poor countries with new opportunities to participate in local and global markets. For farmers to benefit from these ...

Brief 1 of the Research at a Glance series, “Biotechnology and Genetic Resource Policies”