• Comparative Study of Institutions for Addressing Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary (SPS) Concerns in Green Bean Exports from East Africa
• Comparative Study of Institutions for Addressing Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary (SPS) Concerns in Cantaloupe Exports from Latin America to the United States
• Public-Private Partnership in Ensuring the Delivery of Safe Food
• Modeling the Spatial Spread of Avian Influenza, Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Control Strategies, and Assessing the Impact on the Poor
• Economic Analysis of Technical Barriers Limiting Agricultural Trade in China
• Megacity Projects of Tomorrow Developed so as to Ensure Sustainable Urban Food and Health Security and Environmental Resource Management

• Assessing Potential Economic Impact of Avian Influenza on Poultry in Latin America
• Assessing Potential Economic Impact of Avian Influenza on Poultry in West Africa
• Water Quality Management in the Maipo River Basin

The world is entering a period of rapid change of how agricultural products are produced, processed, consumed, and marketed. Many developing countries have gone into the production of nontraditional agricultural products in order to diversify their agricultural exports and increase foreign currency earnings. Although all countries share similar concerns about food safety, the relative importance of different risks varies with climate, diets, income, and public infrastructure. With increasingly integrated global markets, least developed countries (LDC's) are increasingly becoming food suppliers for developed countries (DCs).

One of the main reasons that small- and medium-scale producers are often not participating in growing export markets for high-value agricultural commodities is that they cannot meet strict food safety and quality requirements associated with the delivery of their product to distant and more formal markets. These producers face four distinct problems: 1) how to produce safe food, 2) how to be recognized as producing safe food, 3) how to identify cost-effective technologies for reducing risk, and 4) how to be competitive with larger producers who have the advantage of economies of scale for compliance with food safety requirements. At the same time, lower standards are often applied for domestic markets in LDCs.

This project will make a cross-country case study on the export of Green Beans from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zambia to the United States. The study will focus on the five research questions - a) any food safety requirements imposed by green bean importers and the national government. b) how producers and exporters meet those requirements, c) are small-holders squeezed out by these requirements, and d) what are the spillover effects of food safety regulations for exports on the domestic market?

The world is entering a period of rapid change of how agricultural products are produced, processed, consumed, and marketed. Many developing countries have gone into the production of nontraditional agricultural products in order to diversify their agricultural exports and increase foreign currency earnings. Although all countries share similar concerns about food safety, the relative importance of different risks varies with climate, diets, income, and public infrastructure. With increasingly integrated global markets, least developed countries (LDC's) are increasingly becoming food suppliers for developed countries (DCs).

One of the main reasons that small- and medium-scale producers are often not participating in growing export markets for high-value agricultural commodities is that they cannot meet strict food safety and quality requirements associated with the delivery of their product to distant and more formal markets. These producers face four distinct problems: 1) how to produce safe food, 2) how to be recognized as producing safe food, 3) how to identify cost-effective technologies for reducing risk, and 4) how to be competitive with larger producers who have the advantage of economies of scale for compliance with food safety requirements. At the same time, lower standards are often applied for domestic markets in LDCs.

This study proposes to investigate how small producers of cantaloupe in Mexico and Guatemala have responded to the increasing demands of food safety in the United States. This project will make a cross-country case study considering Mexico and Guatemala. The study will focus on the five research questions - a) any food safety requirements imposed by cantaloupe importers and the national government. b) how producers and exporters meet those requirements, c) are small-holders squeezed out by these requirements, and d) what are the spillover effects of food safety regulations for exports on the domestic market?

As supply chains become more complex, supply chain management plays an increasingly important role in the delivery of high-value agriculture (HVA) to distant markets. Given the perishable nature of HVA and the demand for certain quality and safety attributes, relationships, networks, skills, and coordination mechanisms need to be created to manage the flow of products between intermediaries and ensure that quality specifications are met. Public-private partnerships (PPP's) can play a key role in creating such links, particularly where market failures impede access by the poor. This work examines a number of case studies in a number countries illustrating the potential of PPP's in promoting smallholder access to HVA supply chains, highlighting the market failures faced by smallholders at different parts of the supply chain and the challenges HVA imposes on public and private institutions in meeting these new standards.

Many human diseases have spread from the infections of domestic and wild animals. As the ecology of human/animal interactions enters a new phase of dynamic change globally, the threat of "new" diseases emerging that threaten human health and livelihoods is an immediate and growing concern. Avian influenza is one example, while avian influenza (AI) strains of low pathogenicity have been recorded regularly over the last century, the occurrences of highly pathogenic AI (HPAI) in East and Southeast Asia, with subsequent extensions in distribution to Europe and Africa have caused tremendous concern worldwide. The spread of HPAI, its actual impacts on agriculture, and its potential impacts on human health, put this disease at the forefront of global human safety and development policy dialogues.

Proposed work on avian influenza initially focuses on the Rift Valley and parts of West Africa, evaluating the risks and cost-effectiveness of alternative disease control measures, and identifying the costs and benefits of these measures for different socio-economic groups, with particular emphasis on small-scale producers and poor consumers. To aid us in achieving this goal we are proposing the following separate research modules which can readily be adapted to answer a number of policy questions:

1. Spatial spread analysis of the likelihood of HPAI coming into contact with regional poultry production via all potential pathways through the development of a probabilistic spatial model
2. Spatial spread analysis of HPAI to humans.
3. Analyses that captures the socio-economic and distributional effects of HPAI on the livelihoods (income and nutrition) of different categories of producers and consumers including women, children and people with HIV.
4. Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses of the impact of various control options on different size producers with linkages to spatial spread model
5. Institutional analysis of the market failures preventing effective adoption of HPAI control measures and the types of institutional innovations needed to ensure that smallholders, women producers, and the poor effectively adopt HPAI control measures.
6. Compensation models to control and prevent further spread of AI.
7. Development of decision tools to communicate risk and policy trade-offs to policy makers and a variety of stakeholders.

Regulations to protect plant, animal and human health are key determinants of trade in primary and processed agricultural products. Despite international rules to disciple their use, some technical barriers to trade impose undue costs on developing countries, with little offsetting benefit from improved sanitary or phyto-sanitary conditions. At the same time, agricultural trade is growing fastest in high-value products for which technical standards are important, and the standards themselves are evolving rapidly under changing technology and consumer preferences. A shift is occurring from the outright product bans or inspection-based testing (with costly sampling and product rejections) to process-based approaches to risk mitigation that require enhanced firm- and farm-level and public institutional capacity. Thus, developing countries face challenges, both as exporters and importers, including the design of production systems that engage smallholder farmers in meeting standards of international markets. A well-functioning regulatory system is of importance to all countries exporting or importing agricultural products.

This project provides risk-assessment and economic analysis of selected technical barriers that limit the agricultural trade of China. The research has two components. The first is to identify technical barriers for which strategies can be developed to expand trade opportunities. The second component will provide in-depth, analysis integrating risk-assessment and economic information necessary to make effective arguments for modification or elimination of selected barriers. The research emphasis will be on assessment of systems approaches that utilize production-process requirements designed to achieve risk-reducing goals while facilitating trade. The methodology employed evaluates the net results and the marginal effects of each measure within the management system. The objective is to determine the steps necessary to achieve the needed risk mitigation at least cost. Assessment is made both of risk reduction and expected economic impacts on producers, consumers and trade. In combining the risk and economic analysis, questions that arise include what are the costs and technical effectiveness of each measure; what is the subsequent market supply; how is demand characterized; and does the market from which a product is excluded without the system approach provide the only economically feasible trade possibilities? These factors determine the effects of modifying or eliminating technical barriers to trade.

The concentration of people in cities, using water for domestic purposes, sewage, non-agricultural and agricultural livelihoods presents serious challenges to water quality. Addressing these challenges requires examining not only technological solutions within the city, but also institutional and governance arrangements and linkages with the rural areas upstream and downstream. The Hyderabad Megacities project allows us to address these issues.

The Project focuses on four problem areas: environmental and resource degradation, poverty and nutrition, application of locally generated knowledge as well as institutional innovation and improved governance structures in Hyderabad, as a case of a rapidly-growing city, to learn about management of these issues in megacities. Water quality plays a key role in both the work on natural resource management and on urban food security and livelihoods. IFPRI will contribute to the overall design and implementation of research on:

• Urban livelihoods, poverty, and food security, including the role of public distribution, social capital, and urban agriculture
• Institutional structures for ensuring water quantity and water quality for linking government and community action on water
• Developing governance structures and enhancing participation.

For each of these areas, IFPRI will work with other research partners to design appropriate qualitative and quantitative research strategies, analysis of the research, and outreach through scholarly publications as well as policy briefs, workshops, and mass media.

This study analyzes ex-ante the potential impact of an outbreak of Avian Influenza (AI) in 21 countries of Central and South America and uses a cost/benefit analysis to assess investments to prevent and control the disease. The study reviews the impact of recent outbreaks of AI in Southeast Asia and uses this information to define two scenarios (rapid response versus slow response) in Latin America to estimate the different costs that may occur to an economy depending on the response rate. A probability of occurrence is assigned to each scenario based on the status and capacity of veterinary services in different countries to respond to an outbreak of AI. Investments to prevent and control AI in each of these countries are estimated and then evaluated using a probability distribution of costs and benefits that result from these investments.

There have been confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in West Africa since February 2006. Thousands of chickens have been dead of the deadly virus or slaughtered as a control measure. The spread of HPAI posts a great challenge to the poultry industry, in particular the livelihood of many smallholder poultry farmers in West Africa. Based on one important characteristic of AI spread and transmission, a spatial model, using most recent spatial distribution of chicken and human population, is developed in this paper. The spatial model is used to analyze potential economic impact of avian influenza (AI) in West Africa, taking Nigeria as an example. The analysis shows that depending on the affected areas, AI can directly hit Nigeria chicken production and the negative production impact can be as large as 2.4 to 4.4 percent along either bird migratory flyway passing through the country, and 7 percent in the current outbreak zones. However, the indirect effects, induced by consumers' response to reduce chicken consumption and hence the declines in chicken prices is generally larger than the direct effect. In the worse case scenario, Nigerian chicken production would fall by 21 percent and chicken farmers would lose US$250 million revenue. While most attentions have been focused on preventing a global influenza pandemic, the current paper shows these preventive measures have great impact on poultry industry and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in West Africa.

Water resources that meet sufficient quality standards are necessary to sustain human, animal and plant life and are an essential component of economic activity. While resources are adequate at the aggregate level; spatial, temporal or seasonal and quality constraints create challenges in meeting increasing demand for water in different sectors. The rapid increase in demand for water for non-irrigational purposes driven by growing income and economic growth is affecting rural water supplies. In addition to reduced water supply, deteriorating water quality is also becoming a major issue affecting rural livelihoods.

At the macro level, IFPRI is incorporating water quality impacts into integrated economic-hydro models and is developing extensions to look at water quality impacts of industrial and agricultural activities. At the local level, tailored approaches, including demand management, education, and economic incentives are needed. IFPRI is using this approach in a project on Enhancing Rural Water Security through Improved Water Quality Management, Maipo River Basin, Chile.