IFPRI Datasets

Changes in height-for-age of Egyptian children from 1995 to 2014: Implications for improving child health outcomes

Background
Stunting is a serious health problem in Egypt. Stunting rates and height-for-age z-score (HAZ) distributions changed notably in Egypt over time, yet the factors that led to these changes remain unknown. This study examines the factors associated with these changes and provides important considerations for designing interventions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Methods
Leveraging data from Egypt’s Demographic and Health Survey for the years 1995, 2003, and 2014, we employ a Recentered Influence Function (RIF) approach that goes beyond the conventional way of measuring stunting as a binary indicator to examine changes across the entire HAZ distribution. The RIF decomposes changes in the HAZ distribution over time into differences attributable to changes in the levels of the determinants of nutrition (covariate effects) and in the strength of the association between these determinants and HAZ (coefficient effects).

Results
The stylized facts show a puzzling increase in stunting rates despite improvements in the level of the determinants of nutrition. Our RIF results attribute the change in stunting rates and other parts of the HAZ distribution primarily to changes in the association between the determinants of nutrition and HAZ (coefficient effects) rather than in the level of the determinants (covariate effects). The results also show that the determinants of nutrition could have heterogeneous impacts at different quantiles of the HAZ distribution.

Conclusion
To reduce stunting rates and achieve the SDG of ending malnutrition, our findings highlight the need for targeted interventions. Interventions should be geographically targeted, promote gender and income equality, improve maternal nutrition, and expand access to better sanitation facilities. This is in addition to wealth redistribution and reforming Egypt’s subsidy program to focus on nutritious food.

Associations between exposure to nutrition, WASH interventions and children’s academic performance in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Poor nutrition and inadequate WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) practices significantly impact children’s health, nutrition, and cognitive development, especially in low-income settings. These factors further aggravate the incidence of undernutrition, weaken the immune system, increase susceptibility to illnesses and reduce cognitive performance. Evidence on the effectiveness of existing WASH interventions is needed.

Objective

This review evaluated the effectiveness of nutritional and WASH interventions on the academic performance of children in Ethiopia.

Methods

A systematic search of Cochrane, DOAJ, Google Scholar, and PubMed (2010–2024) was conducted using MeSH terms and keywords related to WASH. Two independent reviewers screened studies and extracted data. Eligible studies included cross-sectional and cohort studies on Ethiopian schoolchildren with quantifiable academic outcomes. The JBI SUMARI was used to assess bias, and the GRADE approach was used to evaluate evidence quality. The meta-analysis used a random-effects model in Stata and reported pooled RRs with 95% CIs. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses examined moderators such as study design, intervention type, and sample size.

Results

A total of 19 studies, 16 cross-sectional (n= 16) and three prospective (n= 3) cohort studies with a total of 9034 participants, were included. The random effects model revealed a significant improvement in academic performance among students receiving both nutrition and WASH, with a pooled large positive effect size of 2.05 (95% CI: 1.26, 2.28; I2=). In the subgroup meta-analysis, the effect of the intervention was more positive among those who skipped breakfast (3.47, 95% CI: 0.47, 6.47), chronic iodine deficiency (4.49, 95% CI: 4.08, 4.90), food insecurity (2.810, 95% CI: 1.281, 4.339), and underweight (0.61, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.75).

Conclusion

Despite moderate variability and some risk of bias, the evidence supports the integration of comprehensive nutrition and WASH programs into school health initiatives. Future research should focus on long-term effects and cost-effectiveness.

“If you want to have sex you can, if you don’t, you don’t have to”: A qualitative evaluation of the Unite for a Better Life couples program to prevent intimate partner violence in rural Ethiopia

Background
Gender-transformative programing targeting couples is an important strategy to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV), but questions around efficacy and safety remain. This qualitative study explores indications of change and unintended consequences of the gender-transformative Unite for a Better Life (UBL) intervention, using data from the couples’ and control arms of a cluster randomized controlled trial (cRCT) in Ethiopia. The cRCT found no impact on physical and psychological IPV and weak evidence of reductions in sexual IPV in the couples’ arm.

Methods
We analyzed 33 facilitator feedback questionnaires and 29 in-depth interviews (IDIs) among couples conducted approximately 30-months post intervention; 14 participated in UBL delivered to couples, and 15 were from the control arm. IDIs were conducted separately with each member of the couple and analyzed thematically in Dedoose to explore indications of change attributed to UBL.

Results
UBL couples attributed improved household task-sharing, communication, and joint decision-making to the program. Men and women developed more gender-equitable attitudes, leading to more fulfilling relationships. Additionally, most participants in violent relationships reported that UBL led to a reduction or cessation of physical and psychological IPV, and a complete cessation of sexual IPV. These effects were largely attributed to shifts at the individual level for men. Men developed better anger management skills, reduced their alcohol consumption, and increased their knowledge around the consequences of IPV. At the relational level, couples reported increased communication, particularly around sexual desire, and reduced conflict. Additionally, participants reported normative shifts, including decreased acceptance of IPV. There were no reports of changes in control participants nor of major unintended consequences.

Conclusions
When delivered to couples, UBL shows promise in shifting individual-level male factors and relational dynamics and reducing conflict and IPV. This suggests that engaging men in couples can be an effective and safe strategy for IPV prevention.

Assessing the role of food MSMEs in providing employment for women and youth in Ethiopia

Micro-, Small-, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) are often important sources of employment in the food retail environment of Low- and Middle-Income Countries. As a result, policy makers might consider promoting job creation through MSMEs operating in the food environment. In this paper, we study a unique data set collected in two sites in Ethiopia to draw potential policy lessons for job creation based on the characteristics of MSMEs operating in the food environment. The data were collected from among 1,686 food vendors in a neighborhood of Addis Ababa and Butajira, Ethiopia, as part of an effort to better understand the relationship between consumers and the food environment in Ethiopia. Our descriptive analysis suggests that a large share of the enterprises in our sample do not employ anyone beyond the owner, and female-owned enterprises are less likely to hire workers than male-owned enterprises. Moreover, the profits per worker are lower than the cost of a healthy diet, suggesting that without an improvement in profitability it is unlikely that hiring labor would help improve nutritional status. So while the sampled MSMEs may have the potential to deliver food at lower cost, they have limited ability to generate additional employment.

A rapid tool for understanding how knowledge users engage with research findings in research-for-development contexts

Promoting the use of research findings in development projects is essential but often overlooked during study design. Existing frameworks for research use tend to focus on clinical settings and offer questionable applicability to development contexts, which are typically nonlinear, dynamic and cross-sectoral. As a result, there remains a gap in tools that can capture how evidence is intended to be applied by diverse knowledge users in real-world development settings. To address this gap, and drawing on over a decade of experience implementing research-to-action strategies, our objective is to develop a simple research uptake and use tool to better understand and support the use of evidence in research-for-development. We piloted the tool immediately after or 1 month following dissemination workshops, engaging 206 participants across nine sessions in five countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Malawi, and Vietnam – to gather insights on which evidence was most relevant, how participants intended to apply it and why they valued it. Although conceptualized with a focus on agriculture and global health research, this framework is broadly applicable across the wider development sector in low- and middle-income countries.

Farmers’ preferences and willingness to accept incentives for adopting sustainable agricultural practices in India

Sustainable agricultural practices are increasingly promoted to mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture. However, adoption at the farm level remains limited, often due to trade-offs between tradable and non-tradable ecosystem services. This study examines farmers’ preferences for resource conservation practices and their willingness to accept incentive payments for their adoption in the Indian state of Punjab, where rice has become the most important crop despite its cultivation being unsupportive of its climatic conditions. Following the discrete choice experiment approach, the study included 500 farmers with the following attributes: ecosystem service benefits, income compensation, and carbon credit price. The findings reveal that farmers showed a strong preference for adopting improved farm practices. Saving water and avoiding residue burning are the two most preferred ecosystem benefits by the farmers. However, farmers’ preferences are strongly influenced by factors including carbon credit prices, income compensation, socioeconomic characteristics, and their risk aversion capacity. The estimation of extended random parameter logit (RPL) indicated that switching to direct rice seeding requires compensation of Rs. 29,223/ha and Rs. 29,178/ha for reallocating area from rice to legumes, ceteris paribus. These findings are crucial for policymakers in restructuring the existing incentive structure to accelerate the adoption of resource conservation practices in India.

Do precision land management technologies improve farm efficiency? Evidence from laser land levelling in India

Context:
The Indian agriculture system is increasingly constrained by resources and climate vulnerability, with rapid groundwater depletion. This is creating an urgency for adoption of resource-efficient agricultural technologies to address sustainability challenges in intensively irrigated systems. Laser land levelling (LLL) has emerged as a prominent resource and precision land management technology.
Objective:
The study tries to examine the key determinants of LLL adoption and its impact on paddy productivity in Punjab. Secondly, the study also evaluates the technical efficiency of LLL in paddy production. Finally, we examine heterogeneity in technical efficiency outcomes separately for marginal landholders to assess whether the efficiency gains from LLL adoption vary by farm size.

Methods:
Primary survey data is collected from 885 farmers from 12 districts in Punjab, India. The sample comprises of 527 (60%) adopters and 358 (40%) non-adopters of LLL. We use a probit model to identify the key drivers of adoption and derive the inverse mills ratio for correcting the sample selection bias. The, we use propensity score matching to estimate causal impact of LLL adoption on paddy yield. Finally, we apply the stochastic production frontier framework with sample-selection correction to evaluate the technical efficiency levels.

Results and Conclusions:
The findings highlight that LLL adoption increases paddy yield by 2.64 quintals/acre. Efficiency estimates show that adopters achieve approximately 3% higher technical efficiency compared to non-adopters. Moreover, adoption decisions are influenced by structural and asset-related factors, including education, landholding size, and ownership of tractors and pumpsets. Notably, efficiency gains are larger for the marginal farmers, suggesting that smaller landholders may have greater scope of improvements from LLL adoption.

Significance:
This study contributes two fold: It provides a new empirical evidence on the determinants and impact of LLL adoption in paddy cultivation. Secondly, we develop an integrated econometric framework to address selection bias and evaluate efficiency outcomes of LLL adoption. The study highlights the multidimensional benefits of LLL in enhancing productivity and efficiency, supporting its promotion as a climate-smart technology in improving resource-use efficiency and reducing groundwater stress in rice-based farming systems in India.

Locus of control, climate change adaptation and perception: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus about the adverse effects of climate change and potential adaptation strategies, the uptake rates of climate adaptation practices fall short of expectations and public perceptions about the drivers and implications of climate change remain mixed. This paper examines whether farmers’ psychological traits, particularly locus of control, predict climate adaptation strategies. We focus on adoption of drought-tolerant varieties, fast-maturing varieties, early/late planting varieties, crop diversification, conservation agriculture, and water harvesting technologies using a large household survey from Ethiopia. We also explore climate change perceptions, and whether and how they align with actual climatic records. We find that farmers with a higher degree of internal locus of control are more likely to adopt various climate adaptation practices and are more likely to perceive changes in mean precipitation and temperature, while those with a higher level of external locus of control are less likely to perceive climate change and hence less likely to adopt climate-resilient practices. One standard deviation increase in internal (external) locus of control is associated with 3–5 percentage points higher (lower) probability of adopting alternative climate adaptation practices. We also find suggestive evidence that farmers’ climate adaptation responses are consistent with their climate perceptions and actual climatic records. These findings highlight the important role of behavioral attributes, including psychological traits, in explaining climate perceptions and subsequent climate actions.

Conflict, mental health, and labor productivity: Evidence from hired farm workers in Myanmar

Background
Violent conflict can affect worker’s mental health and labor productivity, with implications for agricultural production and food security. Hired farm workers are particularly vulnerable because they often rely on daily wages, have limited assets, and face insecure employment, yet evidence on how conflict affects their mental health and productivity remains limited. This study examines the associations between conflict exposure, mental health, and labor productivity among hired farm workers in Myanmar.

Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional phone survey of 1,504 hired farm workers across Myanmar. The survey collected information on workers’ demographic characteristics, work activities during the past 12 months, absenteeism, self-reported labor productivity (presenteeism), agricultural labor market conditions, job characteristics, job and life satisfaction, mental health, workplace harassment, and access to information. These primary survey data were matched with conflict event data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED). Mediation analysis was used to examine whether mental health mediates the relationship between conflict exposure and labor productivity outcomes.

Results
Overall, 39% of workers were exposed to conflict and 20% met the criteria for trauma. Compared with non-exposed workers, conflict-exposed workers were more likely to experience trauma (27% vs. 17%), more frequently absent from work (28% vs. 23%), and reported lower work performance (7.0 vs. 7.4). In multivariable mediation analyses, conflict exposure was associated with a 7-percentage-point higher likelihood of absenteeism and a 0.15-point lower work performance score. Trauma significantly mediated these associations, increasing the total association between conflict exposure and absenteeism by approximately 18%.

Conclusions
Our findings highlight the need for greater research and policy attention to the socio-psychological implications of conflict, which can erode labor productivity. They also reinforce the case for increased investment in mental health interventions, which have been severely reduced amid widespread budget cuts despite their potentially high cost-effectiveness.

Mapping supply chains, cost structure analysis, and investment priorities for food system transformation under conflict and climate stress in northern Nigeria

Distance, prospects, and migration to towns and cities

The impact of spatial shifts of paddy fields on CH4 emissions in China, 1990–2020

The two sides of migration in Central America: Aggregate and distributional impacts in Guatemala

International migration affects labor supply, production patterns, and external income flows in origin countries, yet our understanding of its economy-wide and distributional consequences remains limited, particularly with regard to the role of return migration. This study integrates detailed microdata on migrant profiles into a general equilibrium model applied to Guatemala to examine how emigration and return migration affect macroeconomic performance, sectoral dynamics, and household welfare. We simulate three scenarios: a reference scenario reflecting recent-historical emigration patterns (MIG-0), a reduced-emigration scenario (MIG-1), and a net-return migration scenario (MIG-2), capturing recent shifts in emigration and return flows by skill level. Results reveal trade-offs between aggregate economic performance and distributional impacts across households. Compared to a baseline economy with no mobility, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rises modestly under the reference scenario (+0.2 percent) and by additional 0.3–0.5 percentage points under the reduced-emigration and net-return scenarios, driven by expanded labor supply from returnees and currency depreciation. Non-agro-processing manufacturing shows the largest expansion (up to 1.8 percent), reflecting its strong labor-absorption potential. Household welfare, especially among remittance-dependent households, is highly sensitive to these flows, with income and consumption declining under the two counterfactual migration scenarios. These findings underscore the need for policies that facilitate returnee reintegration and strengthen social protection for remittance-dependent households, ensuring that the macroeconomic gains from migration adjustments translate into equitable welfare improvements.

After quantification: Insights from India’s Soil Health Card scheme

As the concept of soil health gains prominence, it becomes increasingly important to examine how states design and implement soil health policies. Does soil health offer a novel pathway to enact and legitimize institutional changes toward more sustainable farming systems, or does it risk becoming another neologism that preserves status quo, productivist agriculture? We explore these questions through an analysis of one of the most ambitious state-led initiatives organized around soil health: India’s Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme. The SHC scheme seeks to provide every farmer in the country with bi-annual soil test reports, based on the assumption that improved information will encourage more judicious use of fertilizers and pesticides. The assumption reflects a broader emphasis within the agricultural sciences on the importance of quantifying soil health. Drawing on government documents and farmer perception studies (n = 38), we find that although farmers view the cards positively, they make few substantive changes to their farming practices. As an illustrative case, India’s grand SHC scheme shows that quantification alone is insufficient and could even dampen momentum for transformative policy reforms. Effective and durable change lies in pairing efforts to quantify soil health with (a) plural epistemic approaches to knowledge production, (b) participatory models for knowledge dissemination, and (c) structural reforms in the agri-food system that address issues around land tenure and subsidies.

Hcropland30: A hybrid 30-m global cropland map generated by leveraging global land cover products and Landsat data via deep learning

Integrated hydrological and economic assessment of hydropower and irrigation development in Sudan under climate change

Demands for water, energy, and food are rapidly increasing in many low- and middle-income countries, driving the development of large-scale hydropower and irrigation projects. As climate change poses major risks and uncertainties for large-scale infrastructure investments, it is essential to stress-test infrastructure development plans to address these challenges and strengthen resilience. The Nile is one of the world’s longest rivers, draining approximately 10% of Africa’s land surface; Sudan accounts for around 40% of the basin area, and several new large hydropower and irrigation infrastructure projects are planned. We develop an integrated analytical framework for the Nile River system, utilizing 16 climate projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) 6 and hydrological, river system, and Computable General Equilibrium models to evaluate the biophysical and economic impacts of hydropower and irrigation development in Sudan under climate change. The results indicate a projected increase in the naturalized streamflow of the Nile by 2050 due to climate change. A phased hydropower and irrigation development strategy in Sudan – targeting a total of 1,500 MW of hydropower capacity and approximately one million hectares of irrigated wheat – is projected to increase annual hydropower generation by up to 8.1 TWh and expand total wheat area by 283% by 2050. These developments increase the undiscounted national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during 2030–2050 by US$ 0.1 to 0.4 billion per year, with larger increases occurring under high economic growth pathways. This research highlights the interconnected nature of climate change, water resource development, and economic performance, underscoring the importance of integrated assessment in informing investment decisions.

Persistent BMI and height deficits reflect structural and geographic inequities among adolescent girls in Nepal

Adolescence is a period of rapid growth; however, many adolescent girls experience suboptimal growth trajectories. This longitudinal study assessed changes in body mass index (BMI) and linear growth and associated factors among Nepali adolescent girls from 2017-2019. We analysed panel data from three waves (2017 [n=770], 2018 [n=682] and 2019 [n=618]) of never-married and non-pregnant girls aged 10-19 years in 2017. BMI-for-age difference (BMI-AD) and height-for-age difference (HAD), indicating deviation from WHO age- and sex-specific medians, were used to assess change over time. BMI-AD and conditional growth (calculated as residuals from regressions of 2018/2019 HAD on prior HAD and age) were used in the regression analyses to identify associated factors. Conditional growth reflects linear growth above or below what would be expected, based on prior height and age. We used descriptive statistics to assess change, and linear mixed-effects and ordinary least squares regression to identify factors associated with BMI-AD and conditional growth, respectively. Findings confirmed that girls consistently had lower BMI (-1.78kg/m2, -1.60kg/m2 and –1.48kg/m2 respectively in 2017, 2018, 2019) and height relative to the WHO median for their age and sex (-10.3cm, -10.2cm and -9.9cm respectively in 2017, 2018, 2019), with negligible improvements. Factors associated with higher BMI-AD were post-menarche status (0.98kg/m2, 95% CI 0.72, 1.25), higher education (0.11kg/m2, 95% CI 0.01, 0.21), and disadvantaged caste/ethnicity (0.48kg/m2, 95% CI 0.14, 0.83); in contrast, older age (-0.17kg/m2, 95% CI -0.27, -0.07), food insecurity (-0.31kg/m2, 95% CI -0.57, -0.06), and terai (-0.93kg/m2, 95% CI -1.45, -0.40) or hill (-0.57kg/m2, 95% CI -1.06, -0.08) residence were associated with lower BMI-AD. For conditional linear growth, older age (0.19cm, 95% CI 0.14, 0.24 for 2018; 0.16cm, 95% CI 0.11, 0.21 for 2019) and underweight (0.25cm, 95% CI 0.10, 0.40 for 2018) predicted higher gains than expected given their prior height and age, whereas post-menarche status (-0.94cm, 95% CI -1.16, -0.72 for 2018; -1.03cm, 95% CI -1.25, -0.82 for 2019) and terai (-0.35cm, 95% CI -0.62, -0.08 for 2018; -0.31cm, 95% CI -0.59, -0.03 for 2019) hill (-0.25cm, 95% CI -0.48, -0.02 for 2019) residence predicted lower growth than expected given their prior height and age. Findings highlight the need to address age-related nutrition, education, food insecurity, and geographic disparities to support healthy growth.

Inter‐group cooperation and conflict. Experimental evidence from Yemen

The impact of public price information on farm incomes: Lessons from the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange

Inadequate energy and micronutrient intakes across Filipino population groups: Findings from the 2021 Expanded National Nutrition Survey

Background
Diet-related challenges and food insecurity are experienced by many Filipinos, underscoring the need for evidence-based interventions to improve diet quality and prevent malnutrition.

Objectives
The study aimed to evaluate the usual energy and nutrient intakes and the probability of inadequate micronutrient intake across different population groups in the Philippines.

Methods
The 2021 Expanded National Nutrition Survey was a nationally representative survey conducted in the Philippines; it assessed dietary intake using a quantitative 24-h dietary recall, with a repeated recall among 50% of participants on nonconsecutive days. Usual intakes, probability of inadequate intake (PII) for micronutrients, and mean probability of inadequacy (MPI) for 11 micronutrients were estimated using the National Cancer Institute method among children under-5 (U5, n = 4930), school-aged children (SAC; 6–9 y, n = 8116), adolescents (10–19 y, n = 15,394), adults (20–59 y, n = 29,391), elderly (>60 y, n = 9170), nonpregnant/nonlactating women of reproductive age (NPNL-WRA; 15–49 y, n = 15,037), pregnant females (n = 436), and lactating females (n = 1354).

Results
Mean energy intake ranged from 699 kcal/d in U5 to 1500 kcal/d in adults and was below recommendations across all populations. Carbohydrates contributed 61% of energy in U5 and 73% in adults and lactating females. Protein contributed 12% to 14% and fat 13% to 26% across all groups. High PII (>75%) for calcium, zinc, vitamin C, riboflavin, iron, thiamine, and folate was observed in most groups, except for lower inadequacies in thiamine, folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 among U5 and SAC. MPI increased with age, from 59.5% in U5 to 83.3% in lactating females and was higher among groups from food-insecure households.

Conclusions
Reported energy intake was below recommendations in most groups. Intake of many micronutrients was inadequate, particularly among NPNL-WRA, pregnant, and lactating women, highlighting the urgent need for targeted interventions to improve dietary quality, micronutrient intake, and food security among vulnerable populations.

Nutrition sensitive poverty and its correlates in Papua New Guinea: Incorporating healthy diet targets into poverty measurement

As the international development community increasingly prioritizes nutrition outcomes, incorporating healthy diets into poverty measurements has important implications for what it means to be poor. Particularly for low- and middle-income countries dependent on domestic agriculture and low-cost food imports, evaluating the access to healthy diets is crucial to meeting food security goals. This paper provides the most expansive poverty assessment using the cost of basic needs approach in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 15 years. In doing so, we compare a standard cost of basic needs poverty line where the food poverty line is defined by modest diets aligned with consumption patterns that meet a dietary energy (calorie) threshold; and a healthy diet food poverty line that meets both the dietary energy threshold and recommended nutrition targets. Results suggest that 43% of sample individuals live below the standard cost of basic needs poverty line. An additional 21% of sample individuals (64%) live below the healthy diet poverty line due to the relatively high cost of nutrient-dense foods in PNG. Multivariate regression analysis underscores the importance of household income diversification, whether via non-farm enterprise ownership or migrant remittances. Results reflect the unique challenges characterized by PNG’s remote landscape and lack of rural services, amplifying the need to improve rural-urban linkages that promote market access, educational attainment, and higher value employment opportunities.

Where does decentralised green nitrogen fit in Africa’s fertiliser resilience strategy?

Africa faces recurrent fertiliser shocks because much of its nitrogen supply depends on imported products, fossil energy, and exposed trade routes, while production, product mix, logistics, and farm-gate demand remain poorly aligned. Decentralised green nitrogen production – defined as small-scale nitrogen fertilizer synthesis powered by renewable electricity – could make a major contribution to addressing these challenge, but to go to scale it will need to lower delivered costs, improve farm returns, reach farmers with responsive crops, and manage product, safety, resource, and governance risks. This opinion piece argues for an Africa-wide prioritisation assessment that compares potential decentralised production with imports, regional trade, larger low-emission plants, blending, logistics, and advisory support. The goal is to identify intervention bundles that deliver the right nitrogen product to the right farmers at the right cost for the coming decades.

Two pathways to women’s agency: Rights-based mobilization and livelihoods-based collectives in rural India - Formative case studies from Bihar and Chhattisgarh, India

Women’s effective leadership and representation are central to just and resilient agrifood systems, yet there remains a “dramatic imbalance” between women’s extensive contributions to agrifood systems and their leadership and decision-making power (Gerli 2015). Advancing women’s leadership, however, requires evidence on what shapes women’s leadership and what helps to sustain it, and this evidence base remains fragmented across geographies, sectors, and organizational types. Much of the existing evidence relies on narrow, quantitative indicators — such as counts of women in leadership positions — that capture little about the quality of leadership, the collective or informal forms it can take, or the pathways and trade-offs involved.

This note presents two formative, qualitative case studies conducted as part of a broader effort by the CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion Accelerator to build comparable, cross-context evidence on women’s leadership in agrifood systems (see Elias et al. 2025). The two studies — one with a rights-based labour collective in Bihar and one with women’s self-help groups in Chhattisgarh — were designed around a shared set of research questions so that their findings could speak to each other, even though the organizational forms, histories, and contexts they examine differ substantially.

Mapping the policy landscape for climate action in Ethiopia's agrifood systems

Ethiopia has made important policy commitments to address climate change in agriculture and food systems, yet challenges remain in translating these commitments into coordinated, inclusive action. This study examines Ethiopia’s climate change institutional landscape, with a particular focus on the integration of gender and nutrition considerations. Drawing on the Net-Map methodology and a participatory stakeholder mapping workshop involving government agencies, donors, nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, and private sector actors, the study maps the institutional relationships shaping climate action.

Findings reveal a highly centralized network, with authority concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office, financial flows largely controlled by the Ministry of Finance, and information and advisory exchanges dominated by the Ministry of Agriculture. While several institutions play influential roles in shaping climate action, coordination across sectors is limited. Despite the proliferation of gender- and nutrition-related initiatives, their implementation is fragmented and weakly connected to climate policy processes. The findings point to the need for stronger cross-sectoral coordination, more inclusive governance arrangements, and greater institutional support for actors working at the intersection of climate change, gender, and nutrition.

Building control and trust for farmers in agriculture’s generative AI transition

Key takeaways
- Generative AI can deepen power imbalances. Farmers see simple tools, but providers often control the data, infrastructure, and knowledge generated behind the scenes.
- Current governance protections are weak. Many agricultural AI services provide limited transparency, weak user control, and insufficient safeguards for farmers’ data and privacy.
- Farmer-centered governance is essential. Farmers need stronger data rights, meaningful choices over data use, and a greater role in shaping how agricultural AI systems are designed and governed.

Why DO retail chains contract with so few farmers?

Introduction: Contract farming and development

Routledge handbook of contract farming and development

New institutional economics perspectives on contract farming

Contracts in the real world

Accessing agricultural credit through Kisan Credit Cards: Patterns of use, transaction costs, and institutional barriers in eastern India

Game of drones: On the cusp of a revolution in Indian agriculture

Drones are being used to spray nutrients, and also herbicides and pesticides across both small and large holdings in Indian agriculture. The use is still small and geographically confined but it is spreading rapidly, driven by an informal sector which is innovative in adaption and use.

How are fertilizer markets coping with the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz?

Key takeaways
- Nitrogen markets are returning to pre-war levels, but risks remain. Urea and ammonia prices have fallen from earlier peaks, though seasonal demand could drive new increases if disruptions continue.
- Phosphate supplies remain tight and costly. Prices have stayed elevated as sulfur shortages continue to constrain production and trade.
- Sulfur has emerged as a major bottleneck. Reduced exports, transport disruptions, and export restrictions are raising costs across global fertilizer markets.

The effects of a multifaceted graduation model on intra-household dynamics: Experimental evidence from Ethiopia

We provide evidence around the effectiveness of a gender-sensitive graduation model in shifting intrahousehold dynamics and empowering women in rural Ethiopia, drawing on a multi-arm cluster randomized trial. The bundled intervention centered around village economic and social associations, nurturing care groups, men’s groups, and livelihood grants; one arm also provided a monthly cash transfer for pregnant and lactating women. Following two and a half years of implementation, we find evidence of increased savings for both men and women, a reduced gender gap in access to emergency funds, increased men’s participation in chores and childcare, and increased men’s and women’s knowledge of infant and young child feeding practices. The results also show that the interventions increased women’s decision-making power and shifted gender norms around intimate partner violence, but only in the arm receiving the maternal cash transfer. These results suggest that multifaceted interventions targeting multiple constraints are promising tools for transforming traditional gender norms and enhancing women’s agency.

Agricultural inputs & harvest among fruit producers in rural Sri Lanka: Insights from a baseline survey of the Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH) end-to-end evaluation

Repeated crises in Sri Lanka – the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, and climate-related disruptions – have strained food systems and narrowed household access to nutritious foods, pushing many toward cheaper and more calorie-dense alternatives. These pressures have compounded an ongoing nutrition transition, in which rising consumption of ultra-processed foods coexists with persistent micronutrient deficiencies and increasing rates of overweight and obesity.

Fruit and vegetables (F&V) are key sources of vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals, and adequate intake contributes to the reduction of both micronutrient deficiency and diet-related chronic diseases. However, intake of fruit and vegetables (F&V) falls well short of international and national recommendations: mean consumption in rural agricultural communities is approximately 118 (±117) grams of vegetables and 71 (±243) grams of fruit per person per day, against the minimum of 400 grams per person per day according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Sri Lanka's Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG). What farmers grow, their production practices, how much they harvest, and whether produce enters household consumption or local markets all shape the acceptability and availability of F&V at the household and community levels, making production data a necessary input for understanding and addressing low intake. This brief follows a companion brief on vegetable production and applies the same framing to fruit.

The CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition (BDN), previously the Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH) initiative, integrates supply-side, demand-side, and food environment interventions across the food system. This brief presents baseline findings on fruit production from rural farming households enrolled in the FRESH end-to-end evaluation in Sri Lanka, documenting fruit crops grown, inputs used, pre-harvest losses, yields, and market orientation to inform supply-side intervention design and establish a benchmark for evaluation.

Characteristics and survival of agrifood micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises in the Sudan’s recent conflict: Exploring systemic challenges

The outbreak of violent conflict in the Sudan in April 2023 severely disrupted agrifood systems (AFS), markets and livelihoods. Micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are playing a critical role in sustaining food supply, employment and economic activity. This paper examines which firm-level characteristics are associated with higher levels of operational continuity among MSMEs that have continued operations during the ongoing conflict. The analysis uses nationally representative data from a survey of MSMEs in 2024 by IFPRI and the UNDP, conducted through computer-assisted telephone interviews across 13 states of the Sudan. It links firm-level outcomes with locality- or district-level conflict exposure data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED). The empirical analysis focuses on 785 enterprises that were operating prior to the conflict and continued operations thereafter. Firms’ post-conflict operational status is measured using an ordered categorical variable ranging from no operations to full operational capacity, and an ordered logit model is used to estimate how firm characteristics are associated with operational recovery.

Descriptive results indicate substantial disruption among surviving firms: 57 percent of enterprises relocated at least once, 62 percent experienced temporary closure, and only 19 percent were operating at full capacity at the time of the survey. Average monthly sales declined sharply, particularly for non-agricultural AFS enterprises, and permanent employment fell across all enterprise types. Econometric results show that sector affiliation and commodity type are not significant predictors of a firm’s operational level. Instead, operational outcomes are strongly associated with value chain position, firm size, financial inclusion, formality, owner characteristics, and pre-conflict enterprise location. Input dealers display significantly higher odds of operating at higher capacity relative to producers, while firms in support services such as logistics, transport and packaging face significantly lower odds. Small and medium-sized firms, female-owned enterprises, firms with bank accounts, and enterprises that were not financially constrained prior to the conflict are more likely to be sustaining higher operational levels. In contrast, registered firms, those with multiple pre-conflict branches, and those located in high-intensity conflict areas, particularly Khartoum, are significantly less likely to be operating at higher capacity.

The findings highlight that enterprise resilience during conflict is shaped more by structural and institutional characteristics than by sector alone. Policy responses should therefore prioritize restoring midstream value chain functions, expanding access to conflict-adapted financial services, and supporting and protecting logistics and transport networks, particularly in relatively safer states that have become hubs for displaced firms. Strengthening these enterprises is essential, not only for firm survival, but also for maintaining AFS functioning and supporting broader economic stabilization in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Proximity over pay: Why small towns attract migrants

Because rural migrants are deterred far more by distance than they are drawn by higher pay, nearby towns – despite offering lower earnings than cities – end up absorbing far more migrants and doing more to reduce poverty, making them a decisive channel for inclusive urban growth.

Tracking agrifood value chain transformation in India: A tale of two approaches

Global experience suggests that as agrifood systems transform with economic development, nonfarm activities rise in importance relative to primary agriculture owing to the expansion of processing, trade and distribution. Empirical work on the nature and distributional consequences of this transformation have followed two distinct but related methods that rely on Input-Output modelling, the “ERS-USDA Food Dollar approach” and the “IFPRI’s AgGDP+ approach”. So far, these have run parallel to each other. In this study, we offer a novel comparative perspective by applying both methods to a common dataset from India over the period 2011-12 to 2023-24. The Food Dollar estimates of the size of the Indian agrifood system remain consistently higher than that of the AgGDP+ approach but puts the share of “farm” lower- at around half of the consumer food rupee in the former in contrast to around two-thirds of agrifood-system value added under the latter approach. Our analysis suggests that these differences stem from identifiable differences in the questions they seek to answer and the way the data are processed. They must hence be viewed as complementary rather than competing approaches. Despite different vantage points, both methods suggest a coherent if surprising story of India’s agrifood system transformation. First, primary agriculture appears to be central to the agrifood system, whether measured as a share of the consumer rupee or as a share of agrifood-system value added. Second, post-farm value is concentrated in trade and transport rather than in processing or food service. Third, a transformation of the system through the growth of services, input supply, and away-from-home consumption is underway but has so far been gradual.

Presentations for AI Policy Considerations for Food, Land, and Water Systems

Amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), there is growing interest in using AI as a tool to advance food systems transformation. AI has significant potential to transform policy research in food, land, and water systems (FLWS) by enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and responsiveness in policy analysis, but only if tools are rigorously tested, made transparent, and appropriately integrated into research and decision-making processes.

This seminar brings together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to examine how AI is being developed, financed, deployed, and governed across FLWS in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and the resulting implications for food policy research. Speakers will discuss current applications of AI, emerging trends, and political and economic forces shaping its use. Attendees will gain perspectives on governance, inclusion, and design, including how to ensure AI systems respond to real-world constraints and contribute to public value rather than reinforcing existing inequalities.

Exposure to multiple shocks and fragility: Distinct but connected dimensions of vulnerability in polycrisis contexts

Households in low- and middle-income countries increasingly face overlapping and intersecting risks, yet empirical approaches analyze shock exposure or fragility in isolation. We bring these two dimensions together by examining exposures to multiple shocks and fragility as distinct but connected dimensions relevant to polycrisis contexts at the household level. Using panel data from the HORTINLEA survey (2014–2016) conducted in Kenya in rural and peri-urban areas, we combine a nonparametric multi-shock index (MSI), which captures exposure to economic, climatic, and health shocks, with a fragility exposure index (FEI), which measures experiences of human insecurity, economic exclusion, and social cohesion. We find that the MSI and FEI are weakly correlated, consistent with limited empirical overlap between the two indexes in this sample. Contemporaneous, earlier, and three-wave average shock exposures are not significantly associated with aggregate fragility. In contrast, fragility exposure is robustly associated with food security outcomes. A 10-percentage-point higher FEI is associated with 0.11–0.14 fewer food groups in household dietary diversity and 0.18–0.27 fewer months of adequate household food provisioning. Domain-specific results reveal heterogeneous associations, with exposure to multiple shocks positively associated with greater fragility in the social cohesion domain. The findings highlight the value of distinguishing shock exposure from underlying fragility when assessing household vulnerability in contexts affected by multiple overlapping pressures.

Anticipating the 2026/2027 El Niño shock in Papua New Guinea: An assessment of rural household vulnerability from the 2023 Rural Household Survey

- PNG is entering a period of elevated climate and food-security risk. The developing 2026 El Niño raises the likelihood of drought and agricultural stress, with frost an additional concern in the Highlands. Early reports of falling water levels and frost damage underscore the need for preparedness. Impacts may persist well into 2027, since historically El Niño drought conditions are typically followed by flooding from La Niña climate patterns.
- Households already rely on coping strategies when food and livelihoods are under pressure. The 2023 PNG RHS Report shows that households respond to shocks through mechanisms such as relying on wantok networks, consuming cheaper foods, and increasing labor supply. These strategies provide important short-term support but may be insufficient during severe or prolonged climate shock and can carry longer-term welfare costs.
- Agriculture is a key pathway from climate shocks to welfare. Own production provided 54 percent of food consumed, compared with 38 percent purchased and 7 percent from gifts or transfers. Drought or frost can reduce food availability while increasing market dependence and exposure to higher prices.
- Vulnerability is concentrated but extends beyond the Highlands. Highland areas warrant particular attention because drought and frost can coincide, but climate impacts can also affect other regions through agriculture, livestock, water, transport, and markets.
- Targeting should combine climate exposure with household vulnerability. Priority areas should reflect current climate conditions, drought and frost risk, agricultural conditions, food insecurity, livelihoods, assets, and market access, followed by rapid verification. Continued monitoring of food markets is essential. Because many households rely on purchased food, changes in food prices, market availability, and access should be monitored closely as El Niño conditions develop. Market monitoring can help identify emerging food-security pressures, inform targeting, and determine when and where assistance or other interventions should be activated.
- The immediate priority is anticipatory action. Government and development partners should prepare food assistance, agricultural and livestock protection, market monitoring, logistics, and delivery systems, backed by flexible financing that can be activated when agreed triggers are reached.
- The immediate priority is anticipatory action. Government and development partners should prepare food assistance, agricultural and livestock protection, market monitoring, logistics, and delivery systems, backed by flexible financing that can be activated when agreed triggers are reached.
- The 2023 PNG-RHS provides a foundation for improved climate-risk targeting. Linking household data with rainfall, temperature, drought, NDVI, elevation, agricultural, and market data can improve identification of areas where climate stress is most likely to translate into welfare losses and strengthen anticipatory action.

Double burden of malnutrition in Nigeria: Trends, drivers, and regional disparities among children

Malnutrition remains a central public health and development challenge in Nigeria, with profound implications for human capital formation, labor productivity, and inclusive growth. Using four rounds of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 2008 to 2023-24), this study documents national and regional trends in the double burden of malnutrition and rigorously identifies the socioeconomic, demographic, and contextual determinants driving persistent North–South inequalities. We estimate pooled binary and multinomial logistic regression models to assess the effects of household characteristics on child nutrition and apply the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to separate disparities arising from differences in household endowments from those arising from differences in the structural returns to those endowments. Results show deteriorating nutritional outcomes, with rising stunting and wasting and persistent regional inequalities. Stunting and wasting are disproportionately concentrated in northern zones, even among households with comparable assets. Decomposition analysis indicates that regional gaps stem more from systematically lower returns to income, maternal education, and access to basic services than from differences in endowments. Low-returns equilibria reflect deep structural constraints, including inefficient food systems, limited service quality, restrictive gender norms, exposure to conflict, and weak complementarities between household investments and local service environments. Policy interventions targeting households alone are insufficient. Closing regional gaps requires raising the returns to public and private investments via nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs, strengthened service delivery, gender-responsive policies, and conflict-adaptive governance. Without addressing these structural penalties, additional spending risks reinforcing inequality rather than accelerating progress toward Nigeria's Sustainable Development Goals.

Tajikistan Rural Household Survey (TRHS) 2025

The Tajikistan Rural Household Survey (TRHS) is a survey data collection effort led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Tajik Academy of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS). It is an ambitious attempt to generate data critical to filling pertinent evidence gaps on the livelihoods and the resilience of rural households in Tajikistan. The TRHS interviewed 3,267 households in the country's three most populated regions (Sughd Region, Khatlon Region, and Districts of Republic Subordination).

The in-person household survey includes a household-level questionnaire that was administered to any knowledgeable adult household member. An accompanying individual-level questionnaire was administered in private to one randomly selected household member, aged 18 to 54 years old. In households were no adult was present in the specified age range, another household member 55 years or older was allowed to respond to the individual-level questionnaire. The dataset also consists of a brief enumerator survey.

How do the latest Black Sea attacks affect global food security?

Attacks on agricultural infrastructure have been a defining feature of Russia’s war in Ukraine since 2022, causing record-level impacts on global food and fertilizer markets. However, recent attacks on shipping and export infrastructure in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov represent a heretofore unseen escalation in agriculture-related attacks by each country. Russia’s attacks on cargo ships and export infrastructure have largely suspended vessel traffic through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, previously responsible for approximately 90 percent of Ukraine’s agricultural exports. Ukraine’s attacks on major Russian ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have damaged grain export infrastructure and grain-carrying ships, leading Russia to suspend exports from its highest-capacity grain export terminals. These mutual attacks have made a significant proportion of the world’s wheat trade inaccessible to buyers and threaten global fertilizer trade—while reductions in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and Panama Canal further complicate agriculture trade routes.

El Niño and rising fertilizer costs: How vulnerable is Malawi in 2027?

Key takeaways
- Malawi faces significant economic and food security risks from overlapping El Niño impacts and Iran war fuel and fertilizer price shocks, a modeling exercise shows.
- Possible impacts include weaker growth, declines in agricultural production, and higher food prices, though the outcomes are uncertain.
- Food security could deteriorate sharply in 2027. In the average scenario, nearly 500,000 more people fall into poverty and about 4.6 million more become undernourished.

Presentation for Global Agrifood Systems Outlook to 2050: Informing Decisions for an Uncertain Future

- The world is complex and uncertain, and agrifood systems are no exception
- Choices we make today (or don't make) can have wide-ranging and long-lasting consequences
- Strategic planning to develop new technologies, build new infrastructure, and educate the next generation need to look beyond the next year, or even the next decade
- This is part of a larger set of analyses to inform policies and investments over a wide range of geographic and time scales

Global agrifood systems outlook to 2050

Agrifood systems are changing in remarkable ways, driven by changes in population, income, technology, climate, and many other factors. Preparing for the future requires learning from the past while exploring how the future will differ. Helping public and private decision-makers in low- and middle-income countries plan strategically to meet future agrifood systems challenges requires a comprehensive longer-term outlook.

This report uses advanced modeling tools to explore the likely direction and magnitude of changes in major agrifood systems indicators under “middle-of-the-road” assumptions about long-term changes in drivers. The authors present projections for a wide range of agrifood systems drivers and impact indicators over the next 25 years at global and regional levels. Substantial progress is projected across regions and agrifood systems indicators, but major challenges remain.

<B>Report Landing Page</B>: https://www.ifpri.org/ifpri-book/global-agrifood-systems-outlook-to-2050/

<B>Print on Demand</B>: https://www.amazon.com/dp/089629479X

<B>Launch Event</B>: https://www.ifpri.org/event/global-agrifood-systems-outlook-to-2050-informing-decisions-under-uncertain-future/

Import bans in Senegal onion sector

This policy brief provides an in-depth analysis of onion import restrictions in Senegal, focusing on their effects on prices, trade, and welfare. The analysis combines econometric evidence and a spatial partial equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of trade restrictions and their removal. The results show that the ban led to a significant and heterogeneous increase in local prices over the period, reaching 92% at the peak of the effect. Local producers benefitted from the price increase when they sell their product at this precise moment while consumer welfare is reduced. The removal of the ban would increase consumer welfare and intra-African trade but at the expense of local producers, undermining the self-sufficiency objective set by the government.

Aligning private incentives with societal goals in smallholder agriculture

Estate agriculture in Malawi and its economic interplay with the smallholder sector: A historical perspective

While smallholder farming remains at the center of agricultural transformation efforts in Malawi, there is renewed interest in the potential role of larger-scale farming in accelerating agricultural and rural development. Larger-scale farms —“estates”— have, however, been part of Malawi’s agricultural landscape for more than 140 years. Agriculture has long been described as bifurcated with a large, subsistence-oriented smallholder sector alongside a smaller estate sector that historically supplied most agricultural exports. This study reviews the evolution of estate agriculture and examines how estates and smallholders have interacted economically, drawing lessons for efforts to promote broad and sustainable agricultural and rural economic development centered around larger-scale farming.

Despite its importance to Malawi’s international trade, the performance of the estate sector has been mixed at best. When estates thrived, it was rarely because they were more productive or efficient than smallholders, but rather because the government instituted regulations or took other actions that hamstrung the productive potential of smallholders in some way.

Most leasehold estates were created in the 1980s, when quotas to sell burley tobacco were reserved for estates of at least twelve hectares, leaving a sector made up of a large mass of small leaseholds and a few genuinely large estates. Other than tenure status and scale, there have been few meaningful distinctions in how the small estates and smallholders operate. With the liberalization of smallholder agricultural marketing in the 1990s, the incentive to maintain these leases disappeared and most appear to have expired, though some of the older and larger estates retain valid leaseholds. The legal status of the lapsed leaseholds is also unclear. It is uncertain whether the land can be re-leased, remains with the former leaseholders, or reverts to customary tenure. This ambiguity, combined with longstanding concerns about idle estate land, is problematic in the context of increasing agricultural land pressure.

Estates have frequently partnered with smallholders. The visiting tenant system for tobacco production evolved into an outgrower scheme, and the Integrated Production System that now organizes most of Malawi's tobacco production has a similar architecture albeit with different actors. Other outgrower schemes emerged, at least in part, because of heavy government involvement. Those that endured did so largely because of the nature of the crops at the center. Tea and sugarcane must be processed rapidly using specialized, capital-intensive equipment to realize their economic value. Beyond such partnerships, evidence that estates generate benefits for the smallholders around them is thin. Historically many estates have been too poorly managed, and unprofitable to generate economic spillovers.

The historical record therefore provides limited support for assuming that large-scale farms in Malawi are inherently more productive or efficient than smallholders, or that their presence will automatically benefit surrounding smallholders. Partnerships between large farms and smallholders are mutually beneficial and commercially successful only in specific contexts and for specific products and where larger-scale farms do indirectly affect smallholder operations and technology adoption and input use in particular, the benefits have often been modest.

None of this argues against large farms in Malawi. Especially for crops suited to mechanized farming and those requiring irrigation, large-scale production may be more efficient. Estates and other largescale agrifood enterprises are also better positioned than smallholders to engage in processing and to access higher-value markets. As resources are scarce, however, the question is not only whether larger-scale farming can contribute to the development of commercial agriculture, but whether its contribution justifies diverting resources away from smallholder-oriented and other programs.

IFPRI Malawi maize market report, August 2026

- Retail prices of maize increased on average by 20 percent in August.
- Prices rose in all monitored markets across all regions of Malawi despite continued imports.
- Imports dominate cross-border trade in Maize at all monitored border locations.

Assessing the local economy-wide impacts of an anchor enterprise in rural Malawi: Evidence from the 2025 operations of Pyxus Agriculture Malawi Limited around Chilanga Farm and Forest, Kasungu

Smallholder-centered agricultural strategies have had limited success in Malawi, prompting interest in anchor-enterprise models in which agribusinesses partner with surrounding smallholder farmers. This note examines whether the benefits of one such anchor enterprise — Pyxus Agriculture Malawi Limited (PAM), a Growth Poles Project partner that sources groundnuts from smallholder farmers around its Chilanga Farm in Kasungu District — reach beyond the farmers and workers it engages directly. Using a local economy-wide impact evaluation (LEWIE) model calibrated on 2025 household and business survey data together with firm administrative records, we trace the full circuit of income that PAM's local spending sets in motion.

PAM's 2025 injection of MWK 623 million — MWK 165 million in net outgrower payments for groundnut sales and MWK 458 million in wages — generated an estimated MWK 1,152 million in real household income across the zone of influence (95% CI: 1,090–1,214), corresponding to a real income multiplier of 1.85. In other words, for every kwacha PAM spent locally, a further MWK 0.85 of real income was created as that spending circulated through local markets, amounting to MWK 529 million in secondary or spillover income. Roughly 74 percent of this spillover accrued to households with no direct contractual relationship with the enterprise, reaching them through the wages and profits of local businesses that serve the PAM workforce and outgrowers. The poorest 40 percent of households captured about 34 percent of the secondary income (MWK 178 million). PAM's operations and spending also supported approximately 6,780 additional labor days beyond direct employment at Chilanga Farm. These gains came with only moderate price pressure: PAM's operations raise non-tradable prices by approximately 7.4 percent and local wages by 4.6 percent.

The multiplier is large and statistically robust, falling to 1.62 only under the most conservative assumption — treating all local activities as non-tradable — and otherwise close to the central estimate of 1.85. Its comparatively high level reflects the specific conditions of the zone of influence around Chilanga Farm and forest: high local retention of household spending, a high value-added share in groundnut production that channels outgrower payments directly into household income rather than into purchased inputs, and strong circulation of income through nearby village and trading-center markets. The principal brake on the multiplier is leakage through non-farm intermediate inputs, as local businesses source between 51 and 70 percent of their inputs from outside the zone.

Ex-ante simulations map the levers available to PAM and its partners to amplify its local economic impact further. Of the five scenarios modeled, a seed-multiplication ("nursery") package that lowers outgrower input costs and local sourcing of a workforce meal program — generate the most total income relative to the direct injection (MWK 117.6 million total from MWK 63.5 million and MWK 28.2 million from MWK 15.2 million, respectively). The wage channel yields somewhat less total income relative to the direct injection (MWK 193.3 million total from MWK 114.4 million) but distributes it more broadly, with non-PAM households capturing nearly half of the spillover income. A complementary 10 percent productivity improvement in local non-tradable businesses would raise the overall multiplier from 1.85 to 2.04 while substantially reducing the associated price pressure (from 7.4 to 4.3 percent), underscoring that investments in local market infrastructure, business capacity, and supply-chain logistics could simultaneously amplify income gains and reduce leakage.

Evolving exchange rates, international prices, and agricultural incentives in Myanmar

Myanmar’s multiple exchange rate framework, introduced in mid-2022, has substantially affected agricultural incentives. By requiring exporters to convert part of their foreign exchange earnings at below-market exchange rates, the system depressed domestic prices of export crops. At the same time, foreign exchange shortages and import restrictions increased the cost of imported agricultural inputs. Both exchange rate regulations and international agricultural prices, however, have changed substantially over the past four years. This note examines how these changes have affected domestic agricultural prices and the incentives facing producers and traders during the current monsoon season. We find three main results:
- The implicit export tax and export margins have declined substantially, bringing local prices closer to international prices. The implicit export tax – the wedge between the international prices converted at formal and parallel exchange rates – was high when the multiple exchange rate framework was introduced but has since declined, reflecting changes in the share of export earnings that exporters are required to surrender at below-market exchange rates. At the same time, the exchange rate regime has compressed export margins, in some cases to zero or below, contributing to a reorganization of agricultural export markets. Foreign exchange shortages and the “Export First Policy” appear to have encouraged agricultural exporters to partner with importers that can access foreign exchange at more favorable rates. Such arrangements allow some agricultural exporters to mitigate the effects of the implicit export tax and remain active despite low or negative margins from exporting directly.
- Import restrictions and foreign exchange constraints have increased the domestic prices of imported agricultural inputs. Urea – the most important inorganic fertilizer used in the country – has, however, remained broadly aligned with international prices, partly because of the government’s fertilizer reference-price system. The system appears to have limited increases in urea prices for farmers, although it has also constrained the margins of agro-input retailers.
- The profitability of fertilizer use has deteriorated substantially. Although fertilizer-use incentives remain better than during the initial period of the Russia-Ukraine war, they are significantly worse than in most recent years. Moreover, fertilizer is only one component of farmers’ production costs. Sharp increases in mechanization costs, driven by higher fuel prices, and in agricultural wage rates, associated with substantial outmigration, suggest that overall farm incomes during the current monsoon season are under considerable pressure.

Beyond the violence: How farmer-herder conflict is reshaping rural livelihoods in the Sahel

Key takeaways
- Farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria and across the Sahel reshapes livelihoods by changing how households work, invest, farm, and plan for the future.
- Adaptation does not always build resilience, as coping strategies can reduce productivity and trap families in long-term vulnerability.
- Women experience conflict in different ways, and effective policies must account for how exposure to violence shapes opportunities, decisions, and aspirations.

Sudan’s conflict at three years: Evidence for recovery, resilience, and rebuilding

Key takeaways
- Sudan’s conflict has devastated food systems. The Third Sudan Conflict Conference explored how farmers, businesses, and markets face severe disruptions, driving food insecurity and livelihood losses.
- Recovery requires more than humanitarian aid. Support must strengthen livelihoods, market systems, and resilience while responding to immediate needs.
- Evidence and local adaptation offer hope. Households, traders, and institutions continue to adjust, showing that recovery is possible with sustained investment and coordination.

Measuring cognitive capacity in food systems

Food systems transformation depends not only on finance, technology, and formal policy commitments, but also on whether countries can convert evidence into coordinated, implemented, and adaptive action. This paper develops the Food Systems Cognitive Capacity Index (FSCCI) as a policy diagnostic covering six system-level capacities: sensing and information, transparency and feedback, policy framing, collective action and coordination, administrative implementation, and anticipatory resilience. Using country-year data for the 2000–2023 period, the study constructs equal-weighted, principal component analysis (PCA)-weighted, and interdependence-adjusted versions of the FSCCI, alongside a Food Systems Cognitive Failure Index and a Food Systems Transformation Performance Index. The results show that cognitive capacity is measurable and policy-relevant, but its association with transformation performance depends on index construction and model specification. In the preferred one-year-lagged models, the equal-weighted estimate is positive but imprecise, whereas the PCA-weighted and interdependence-adjusted estimates remain positive and statistically significant. Additional controls preserve the positive direction of the association but reduce its precision. Regional and interaction analyses also reveal important contextual variation: the association is stronger in Latin America and the Caribbean, positively moderated by climate readiness, and negatively moderated by food-import dependence.

The policy implication is that food systems strategies should be accompanied by investments in the institutional capacities required for implementation. The FSCCI can help governments and development partners diagnose whether the binding constraint lies in weak data systems, limited feedback, fragmented coordination, poor implementation, or inadequate preparedness. It is therefore best used as a capacity-development tool rather than as a country-ranking instrument. Although the findings are associational rather than causal, they support a practical shift from measuring policy presence to assessing whether food systems can perceive problems, learn, coordinate, implement, and adapt.

Food systems transformation would reshape global agriculture

Food systems are a major contributor to exceeding planetary boundaries and poor quality diets are a key mortality risk globally. Projected population and income growth could exacerbate these challenges. In response, there are calls for transformation towards healthy and sustainable food systems. However, the scale and distribution of the impacts of this transformation on agriculture are underexplored. Here we show that, by 2050, the transformation of food systems towards healthy diets (adoption of the EAT–Lancet reference diet), improved productivity and halving of food waste results in a fundamental restructuring of global agriculture, aspects of which break with historical trends. Scenario simulations using a multimodel ensemble of ten global economic models show a 6% median decrease in agricultural land (+1% to −26%) compared with 2020 levels. By 2050, agricultural production would be 17% lower than business-as-usual projections (−2% to −32%) and, economically, the value of this production is US$1.6 trillion (26%) lower (+8% to −58%). Within this, the value of livestock production would be substantially lower than current 2050 projections (−49% to −83%), while vegetable, fruit, nut and legume production value would increase by 23% (−33% to +106%). Results are dependent on the assumed policies to achieve the transformation scenario. We highlight a more active role for food policy to consider the benefits of such a transformation (improved population health and reduced environmental pressures) and navigate the political economy of its impacts.

‘From assuming to knowing’: How impact evaluations support the design, delivery, and scale-up of school meal programs

School meal programs improve children’s nutrition, food security, and mental well-being. When meals are produced locally, these programs also build more robust economies.
-But not all school meal programs were created equal.
-With changes to how food is procured and delivered, governments and other partners can make school meals go so much further.
-Impact evaluations help governments understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions by comparing different procurement and delivery models while school meal programs are under way.

Why water matters for Africa's food systems: A Call to Action for irrigation investment

Less than 5 percent of Africa's cultivated land is reported to be irrigated, leaving farmers, livelihoods, and economies exposed to erratic rainfall, drought, floods and associated economic shocks. Irrigation is key to agricultural intensification, enabling year-round production, allows farmers to grow higher-value, nutrient-dense crops, creates jobs and wealth and strengthens food supply chains and markets. Irrigation is, moreover, an enabler of other agricultural inputs, ensuring that productivity-increasing inputs and technologies don’t go to waste as a result of dry spells but instead generate yields and farmer incomes.

Africa's irrigation potential is considerable: estimates point to roughly 33 million hectares suitable for farmer-led groundwater irrigation and 6 million hectares for additional surface water irrigation. But realizing this potential sustainably means aligning national investment decisions with underlying basin and aquifer conditions; agro-ecological zones; competing water demands (such as for nature, households, and industry); and infrastructure and technology possibilities. The African Union’s Framework for irrigation development and agricultural water management (IDAWM) describes key underlying conditions for investment and scaling complementary irrigation development pathways.

Do ultra-poor graduation programs build women’s resilience to weather shocks? Evidence from rural Ethiopia

We assess whether layering an ultra-poor graduation program on Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) protects women and their households from localized weather shocks. Using panel data from a large cluster-randomized trial matched with detailed weather records, we identify community-level exposure to dryness shocks. Women who are exposed to dryness shocks experience deteriorating nutritional status (in conjunction with declining household food security and assets) and a significant increase in the risk of intimate partner violence. However, access to the graduation program fully buffers women from any increase in intimate partner violence, and partially buffers women and their households against other adverse effects. Further analysis suggests that improved household savings likely drives the program’s protective impact.

A participatory framework to assess agricultural sustainability: Cover cropping as an illustrative example

This study developed an analysis‐oriented agricultural sustainability framework to assess how on‐farm biodiversity‐enhancing agricultural practices impact outcome‐based indicators of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Building on an existing national‐scale agricultural sustainability assessment framework, we adapted it to evaluate farm‐level practices. Using an iterative design, we engaged stakeholders through a farmer survey and workshop to refine indicator selection and ensure contextual relevance. We used biodiversity‐enhancing practices in the Midwestern United States as an illustrative example of how the framework could be applied. Workshop participants were asked to use cover crops as an example to consider how this class of practices affected agricultural sustainability. Our findings highlight that stakeholder engagement during framework development can improve the relevance and specificity of indicator selection, supporting more targeted quantitative analysis for decision‐making.

The gendered effects of rainfall shocks on stunting: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

Rainfall fluctuations significantly reduce welfare for poor rural households in low- and middle-income countries dependent on rainfed agriculture for consumption, and the effects of these shocks can be borne disproportionately by vulnerable household members, particularly children and girls. We present new evidence around the effects of rainfall fluctuations on child anthropometric status in Papua New Guinea, an understudied context characterized by some of the highest stunting rates in the world. We show that negative fluctuations in rainfall within the first 12 months of life lead to a reduction in height-for-age and weight-for-age (though not stunting), but this effect is observed only for girls.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of iron, vitamin A, and zinc biofortification in selected low- and middle-income countries: A modelling study

Background
Crop biofortification is an important tool to improve micronutrient deficiency, but the evidence of its cost-effectiveness remains limited.

Objectives
This study aims to estimate the cost-effectiveness of biofortified crops to address iron, zinc, and vitamin A deficiency in 13 countries.

Methods
We used the burden of disease (BoD) measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), supplemented by a literature review, to quantify DALYs resulting from micronutrient deficiencies. Data and assumptions from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) were used to estimate micronutrient intake and the potential impact of biofortification on micronutrient intake to calculate the efficacy of biofortification in reducing DALYs under conservative, moderate, and optimistic scenarios. The cost was estimated for 30 years (2024-2053) while the benefits were for 20 years (2034-2053). An incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), defined as additional cost per DALY averted, was estimated.

Results
The total cost of biofortification programs varied across countries, ranging from $4.28 million in Guatemala to $34.04 million in Nigeria over 30 years. The ICERs of biofortification varied by type of crop and country; regardless, all are cost-effective using GDP-based cut-offs, except for biofortified cassava and sweet potatoes in Zimbabwe. For example, for iron biofortification of beans under the conservative scenario, ICER was as low as $58.04 per DALY averted in Kenya and as high as $535.52 per DALY averted in Zimbabwe, demonstrating the range of cost-effectiveness of the intervention among the countries selected for the study. A similar pattern was found for iron biofortification of pearl millet; vitamin A biofortification of cassava, maize, and sweet potatoes; and zinc biofortification of rice, wheat, and maize in most countries.

Conclusion
Biofortification of staple crops by selective plant breeding is potentially cost-effective to address iron, zinc, and vitamin A deficiencies.

Adolescent-selected food intake and engagement with the external food environment contribute to unhealthy diets in Accra, Ghana

Background
As adolescents gain autonomy, they interact more independently with their food environments, increasing their vulnerability to rapidly changing and often unhealthy food environments. In Accra, Ghana, unhealthy foods and beverages are widely available and heavily marketed.

Objective
To assess the healthiness and nutrient adequacy of adolescents’ diets in Accra; and to examine whether diet healthiness is associated with independent adolescent food selection and their engagement with home, school and outlet food environments.

Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional study using quantitative 24-hour dietary recalls among 911 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years living in five low- and five middle-class neighborhoods in Accra. For each food and beverage consumed, we documented who selected it and where it was obtained and consumed. We calculated the Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) and the prevalence of adequate intake for fruits and vegetables, protein, fiber, total sugar, total fat, saturated fat and 11 micronutrients. Mixed effects models assessed associations between independent adolescent food selection and food acquisition location (home, school, or other food outlets), and diet healthiness and macro- and micronutrient intake.

Results
A large proportion of adolescents consumed excessive amounts of total sugar (49%) and total fat (44%) and inadequate amounts of fruits and vegetables (98%), fiber (45%), and eight of the eleven micronutrients assessed (39-100%). Greater adolescent-selected food intake (62% of energy intake, on average) was associated with lower GDQS and intakes of fruit and vegetables, protein, fiber, and six micronutrients, and with higher sugar intake (P<0.05). Greater reliance on foods from the external food environment (school: 14%, other outlets: 46%) showed similar associations with poorer dietary indicators.

Conclusion
Strengthening the design, implementation and enforcement of coordinated food policy bundles is needed to shift adolescents’ preferences towards healthy foods, and reduce the availability, accessibility, and appeal of unhealthy options in their food environments.

Wildfire shocks, labor markets, and public policies: Economy-wide evidence from a Mediterranean country

Using the 2017 Portuguese wildfires as empirical evidence from a Mediterranean climate country, this paper assesses the economy-wide and employment effects of wildfire-related capital and labor shocks through a static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with an extended labor-market framework. The analysis focuses on how wildfire shocks interact with labor markets, affect aggregate welfare, and condition the effectiveness of public policy responses. The results show that labor-market disruptions amplify economic losses beyond direct physical damage. Among the policy scenarios examined, comprehensive responses combining infrastructure investment, sector-specific support, and household transfers provide the strongest mitigation of aggregate losses. Recovery and mitigation policies generate the strongest positive effects on GDP, while the fire suppression-cost scenario alone has limited effectiveness. Employment impacts are concentrated in the primary and tourism-related sectors, particularly forestry, agriculture, transport, and accommodation. The findings highlight the importance of maintaining labor-force participation during climate disasters and of combining capital restoration with household support. By quantifying the economy-wide trade-offs between wildfire damage, labor-market disruption, and public-response channels, the paper provides evidence relevant to wildfire-prone Mediterranean economies and to broader environmental-development debates.

The impact of targeted transfer programs on labour supply: Evidence from rural China

Preservation of the IFPRI record: A case study of institutional repository mergers and migrations

At its core, a repository migration is the transfer of records from one system to another. In some cases, it is more of an unraveling, repair, relocation, and rebuilding of a historic property. In 2024, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) library undertook its second migration from an independent CONTENTdm repository to a shared DSpace repository. The institute set an ambitious goal to complete the migration within a single contract cycle with CONTENTdm. Since 2012, the repository has functioned as a bibliographic metadata layer serving the main corporate website, numerous project sites, and the global consortium (CGIAR) website, as well as a digital publishing platform and institutional metrics and reporting system. The team started working with a combination of tools, including: Microsoft Excel, OpenRefine, and custom scripts. Microsoft Excel allowed staff to easily see and manipulate large amounts of data across different metadata fields. OpenRefine (version 3.7) was instrumental in normalizing and cleaning name and keyword variations, as well as locating and editing a single repeated datapoint. The scripts, created by a member of the team and author of this paper, saved hours of time and allowed the team to meet ambitious goals. The team successfully migrated over 20,000 records within 13 months while simultaneously improving metadata quality. Prior to the migration, about half of journal articles lacked external links and several dozen PDFs had been lost over time. Additionally, from 2008–2017, IFPRI’s records experienced an average of 40% link rot. All of these issues were resolved during this process. Furthermore, the IFPRI record is now interoperable with the other CGIAR institutions and external search engines. While repository and metadata management remain ongoing tasks, this migration represents a significant step forward in preserving institutional knowledge, adopting established standards and best practices in knowledge management, supporting consortium activities, and enhancing the visibility of agricultural research outputs.

Collecting Holistic Evidence on Agroecology Performance to Accelerate Sustainable Food System Transitions

A growing body of research shows the potential of agroecology for enabling a shift to planet-friendly and socially just agrifood systems through context-specific transition pathways. We conduct a scoping review to identify and evaluate the potential of 42 existing agroecology adherence and/or agricultural performance assessment tools to generate credible, legitimate, salient and transferable evidence to inform these transitions. Results show that while multiple relevant tools exist, each of them can be strengthened in at least one area. While most tools are transferable (low time and resource requirements) and have legitimacy (open access with transparent methods), tools have variable saliency (holistic scope inclusive of local priorities) and credibility (use scientific design principles and quality assurance processes). For a subset of 11 tools collecting multidimensional performance data, analysis of 263 identified indicators showed there is a bias towards economic measures (notably income, yield, and resilience), while certain social (e.g. land tenure, traditional knowledge retention) and environmental (e.g. climate mitigation) aspects are regularly overlooked. Through a multidisciplinary process engaging experts across 8 countries, we develop a Holistic Localized Performance Assessment for agroecology (HOLPA) framework that integrates and builds on positive features of existing multidimensional agroecology performance assessments tools and overcomes key limitations. The HOLPA framework for analysis, agroecology indicators, key performance indicators, and low-cost localization process can be used to strengthen agroecology performance assessments, empowering landscape actors to identify evidence-based pathways towards agrifood systems where both people and nature can thrive.

Food on the go: How engagement with the food environment affects adolescent diets in northern Vietnam

As adolescents grow older, they increasingly engage with the food environment. Our study aimed to: 1) assess the contribution of prepared out of home (POH) foods to the healthiness of adolescent diets and 2) identify socio-demographic factors associated with POH foods intake in a rural, a peri-urban, and an urban area of Vietnam.

We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 11–19-year-old adolescents (n = 2,861) and collected socio-demographic and dietary intake data (24-hour recall). The healthiness and micronutrient adequacy of diets was assessed using the Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) and the micronutrient adequacy ratio (MAR) respectively. We used regression analyses with robust standard errors (to account for school-level clustering) to assess the consequences and identify the drivers of POH food intake.

Over 80% of adolescents consumed foods POH on the previous day, contributing 22–26% of daily energy intake. Healthy food groups were underrepresented in POH foods, which were higher in fat, saturated fat, and sodium, but also had higher micronutrient density than foods prepared at home. POH intake was associated with higher energy intake and micronutrient adequacy, but lower diet healthiness. Socioeconomic status, female sex, pocket money, and smartphone ownership were associated with POH consumption, with site-specific differences.

Food environments should be made healthier through front-of-package warning labels, reformulation (e.g., reducing milk fat and sugar), and restrictions on the marketing and availability of unhealthy foods combined with the promotion of healthy foods, snacks and meals.

Associations between hygiene practices and carcass contamination by Escherichia coli and coliforms in bovine slaughter facilities in rural Kenya

Carcass contamination during slaughter poses a significant threat to meat safety and public health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This cross-sectional study, conducted in 25 bovine slaughter facilities in Busia County, Kenya, assessed contamination levels at four anatomical sites on cattle carcasses: rump, flank, brisket, and neck. The study also examined the association between slaughterhouse hygiene practices and microbial contamination by Escherichia coli and coliforms. A total of 193 carcasses were sampled after carcass dressing before sectioning, and E. coli and coliform loads were quantified using MC-Media Pad®. Statistical analyses revealed that contamination levels varied significantly across carcass sampling sites for both coliforms (p = 0.008) and E. coli (p = 0.026), with the brisket showing markedly higher contamination than the rump for coliforms (median 2.15 vs 1.61 log10 CFU/cm2, p = 0.004) and E. coli (median 1.04 vs 0 log10 CFU/cm2, p = 0.020). Key risk factors for increased contamination included carcass contact with the floor, splashing water from wet floors, and visible fecal matter on animal hides. These findings highlight the need for targeted hygiene interventions during slaughter, improved infrastructure, and stronger enforcement of meat safety regulations to reduce contamination and ensure safer meat products for consumers.

From farmer-centred design to algorithmic participation: Navigating technical demands and normative discourses in digital extension

Digital extension and farmer-centric design are increasingly presented as complementary strategies for transforming agricultural innovation systems: digital extension promises scale and efficiency, while farmer-centric design is expected to ensure relevance, inclusivity, and legitimacy. This paper challenges the assumption that these approaches are naturally aligned. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine how farmer-centricity is enacted within digital extension initiatives and how its normative commitments are reshaped as digital platforms evolve. Empirically, we analyse two digital extension platforms developed between 2014 and 2024, one in the Global North and one in the Global South. Drawing on public-facing media, organisational records, design documents, and technical walkthroughs of each platform, we trace how normative, technical, and interpretive frames interact across different phases of platform development. Our findings show that, in early phases, digital extension is framed as enabling farmer-centric design, supporting decentralised design practices, epistemic pluralism, and farmer sovereignty. Over time, however, farmer-centricity becomes instrumentalised to support the scaling of digital extension through data generation, peer diffusion, and environmental accountability, placing new forms of labour and responsibility onto farmers without a commensurate redistribution of authority. These tensions are not resolved but reconfigured through design practices, often obscured by the rhetoric of empowerment and responsiveness. We conceptualise this dynamic as algorithmic participation: a form of participation mediated through digital infrastructures that anticipate and steer farmer engagement in ways that stabilise existing innovation logics. The paper contributes to debates on farmer-centric design and digital extension by showing how even well-intentioned practices can reproduce structural inequalities.

Framing just agroecological transitions through participatory multistakeholder processes

Agroecology, as conceptualised in the thirteen HLPE principles, embeds justice dimensions in the place-based sustainable transition pathways it supports, yet operationalising just agroecological transitions is understudied and remains a design and implementation challenge. In this paper, we apply Schlosberg's four-dimensional justice framework post-hoc, distinguishing distributive, procedural, recognition, and capabilities justice, to six country-level Vision to Action participatory visioning processes conducted under the CGIAR Agroecology Initiative in India, Kenya, Peru, Senegal, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe. Although these processes had not been designed with explicit justice objectives, justice-relevant content emerged across them: competing visions revealed whose values are at stake in the transition; the composition and design of sessions determined whose knowledge shaped transition pathways; and intra-transition trade-offs revealed who bears the costs of change. The analysis revealed shared concerns around food security, fair returns, gender equity, and reduced external input dependence, which took locally specific forms. Capabilities concerns shaped transition pathways more than distributive and recognition claims; and a recurrent tension between visions of input autonomy and pathways of input substitution emerged. Government and private-sector actors were less represented than farmers but were generally assigned significant responsibility for enabling the transition. We argue that participatory multi-stakeholder visioning creates the conditions under which the justice content of agroecological transitions becomes visible, negotiable, and translatable into action planning. Establishing an explicit justice framing ex ante would allow deliberate choices on participant disaggregation while systematic mapping and engagement strategies for absent actors would allow future processes to embed justice-relevant content explicitly from the design stage.

Does mechanization improve net farm income? Evidence from household survey in eastern India

Does local system strengthening improve nutrition program coverage and child growth: Evidence from a large-scale program initiative in India

Determinants of food safety practices among Ethiopian households: a multilevel mixed effects linear regression analysis

The total weighted sample included in this analysis was 62,432,197. Model with the lowest DIC, AIC and BIC values was selected as the best-fitting model. Safe food handling practice among households was 42.4%. Being completed primary school, secondary/vocational education, and university-level education had higher safe food handling practices by 0.21 (95% CI: 0.10, 0.32), 0.49 (95% CI: 0.36, 0.63), and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.64, 1.05), respectively. Working in government, the private sector, self-employed, and retired had significantly higher safe food handling practices by 0.28 (95% CI: 0.05, 0.51), 0.45 (95% CI: 0.17, 0.72), 0.34 (95% CI: 0.14, 0.54), and 0.35 (95% CI: 0.07, 0.64), respectively. Being poorer, middle, richer, and richest wealth index had significantly higher safe food handling practices by 0.33 (95% CI: 0.16, 0.50), 0.52 (95% CI: 0.33, 0.71), 0.84 (95% CI: 0.60, 1.08), and 1.37 (95% CI: 1.09, 1.65), respectively. Being married, female respondents, households having access to basic hygiene services, residing in urban areas, and being exposed to health information were significantly associated with the outcome. There is a significant gap in safe food handling practices. Core household and community-level factors that influence safe food handling practices were identified. Policymakers should implement targeted interventions.

How does rural governance adaptively address multiple rural development objectives? The case of Qingshan Village, China

Transforming food systems in times of global disorder

The transformation of global food systems is affected by global shocks and geopolitical changes. After decades of reductions in poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, the past decade has seen a dramatic reversal. Challenges caused by rising conflicts, climate shocks, and COVID‐19 (CCC) are reinforced by slowing productivity growth, trade disruptions, and increasing market volatility. While transformation requires major investments in agri‐food systems, global public investment in agricultural R&D has slowed, in both high‐ and low‐income countries. Reductions in development assistance further threaten investment in the world's poorest regions. But the crisis also presents opportunities. A new Agri‐food Aid and Investment Architecture (AAA) may be required, and key parts of such a financial architecture are already emerging, characterized by a larger contribution of emerging countries and the private sector, and the need for more efficient use of existing public and private expenditures.

Establishment of pearl millet biofortification breeding and milestones in India

Who is leaving African agriculture? Nine stylized facts on youth, women, and agrifood employment in 15 countries

Sub-Saharan Africa faces an unprecedented labor market challenge: over the next decade, hundreds of millions of young people will enter a workforce still concentrated in the agrifood system (AFS). Yet the demographic structure of AFS employment remains poorly understood, i.e., how youth and women participate across farming, processing, trade, and food services across the region. Here we analyze disaggregated employment data across 15 sub-Saharan African countries, differentiating AFS employment by age and sex across three country groups defined by their stage of structural transformation. We report nine stylized facts that challenge prevailing narratives. Contrary to common belief, youth are not disproportionately exiting agriculture relative to adults. Women and youth are more concentrated in the nonfarm AFS, especially in diversified economies where such opportunities are more prevalent, but gender segmentation deepens with transformation as male employment becomes more concentrated in commercial agriculture and women dominate downstream food-service roles. These patterns call for differentiated, transformation-aware policies to make AFS employment more productive and inclusive for Africa's youth and women.

Debt in the context of crisis: The evolution of lending in Myanmar

Key Highlights
- Household indebtedness has declined substantially. Between 2021 and 2025, the share of households in debt in rural areas fell by 21 percentage points and in urban areas by 9 percentage points. This decline is partly due to credit markets no longer functioning, particularly in conflict-affected areas.
- Informal lenders dominate Myanmar’s credit market. In 2024–2025, 80 percent of loans originated from informal sources, while only 21 percent came from formal financial institutions or the public sector.
- Relatives and friends are the largest source of credit, accounting for 53 percent of all loans, followed by moneylenders with 20 percent. Private banks account for only 1 percent of loans.
- Most loans are used to meet basic household needs, with 43 percent used for food purchases and 27 percent used for health expenditures.
- Debt is concentrated among vulnerable households, including the asset poor, wage laborers, households with larger family sizes and higher dependency ratios, and those affected by economic and climate shocks.
- Loan repayment difficulties are widespread and are associated with poorer welfare outcomes, including reduced spending on food and healthcare, higher income poverty, lower food consumption, and poorer dietary diversity.

Since the 2021 military coup, households in Myanmar have faced overlapping economic, climatic, and conflict-related shocks that have severely disrupted livelihoods and increased financial vulnerability. In this context, borrowing becomes an increasingly important coping strategy for households seeking to smooth consumption, manage shocks, and maintain basic welfare. But despite its importance, formal and informal sources of debt have shrunk, forcing many to go without debt. Using data from the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), this paper examines patterns of household indebtedness, sources and uses of loans, repayment difficulties, and the relationship between debt and household welfare outcomes.

In the first round of the MHWS (December 2021–February 2022), 61 percent of households were in debt, including 67 percent of rural households and 48 percent of urban households. Since then, the share of households owing money has fallen by 21 percentage points in rural and farm households and by 9 percentage points in urban households, suggesting growing supply-side constraints in lending.

Eighty percent of loans are from informal lenders, with only 21 percent sourced from formal financial institutions or the public sector. Informality is considerably higher in urban areas, where 89 percent of households had informal loans, compared with rural areas, where 76 percent of households had informal loans. This difference appears to be driven primarily by farmers, who are still able to access some government and formal lending for agriculture.

Overall, most debt is held by relatives and friends (53 percent in 2024-2025). This is followed by money lenders (20 percent). Shops and traders are also important sources of credit (8 percent), particularly for wage laborers. Again, farmers appear to retain some access to public sector loans (10 percent). MFIs represent the second largest source of formal lending (9 percent). Finally, private banks make up a very small share of loans in the country (1 percent).

Food on the go: How food environments shape adolescent diets in Viet Nam

Key takeaways
- Most adolescents in Viet Nam eat food prepared outside the home, survey data show, especially for breakfast and snacks.
- The nutrition effects of these foods are nuanced. They increase unhealthy fat and sodium intake but also provide key vitamins and minerals.
- Food environments shape what adolescents eat. Healthier food options and stronger nutrition policies can improve diets.

IFPRI in Africa: Partnering for evidence-based transformation

Africa is undergoing a profound, multidimensional transformation, propelled by a dynamic youth population, urban growth, adoption of technology, vibrant entrepreneurship, expanding regional integration, and evolving governance structures, which are reshaping economies, societies, and agrifood systems. Yet the pace of change has been uneven, and the full potential of agrifood systems to drive inclusive transformation remains underutilized. To meet this challenge, African leaders have charted a clear path and ambitious agendas: Agenda 2063, the CAADP Kampala Declaration and 2026–2035 Strategy and Action Plan, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFT), regional economic community strategies, and national flagship programs all define an ambitious, Africa-driven agenda for agrifood systems transformation.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: August 2026

This bulletin reports on food price trends from major markets in Papua New Guinea (PNG), for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026 using the data collected by Fresh Produce Development Authority (FPDA). During this period, two rounds of data were collected in all markets in May 2026. In April, two rounds of data were collected in Banz, Goroka, Kokopo, Lae and Mt. Hagen markets; however, only one round of data was collected in Port Moresby. In June no survey data collection was conducted in Kokopo and Mt. Hagen, whereas Banz, Goroka, Lae and Port Moresby each had one round.

This report analyzes month-over-month changes in Q2 2026 (April to June) and available data through August for selected markets. The bulletin compares prices with the previous quarter (Q1 2026: January to March) and the same period in 2025 (Q2 2025). Prices are reported in real PGK per kilogram (i.e., adjusted for inflation using the FAO Consumer Food Price Index (PCI) and price gaps from July 2025 to August 2026 filled using a growth rate calculated from quarterly PCI data provided by the PNG National Statistical Office (June and September 2025). This bulletin focuses on selected staples (sweet potato, taro, cassava, cooking banana and rice), vegetables (English cabbage, capsicum, and carrot) and fruits (pawpaw and pineapple). For longer time series data and interactive tools, visit the IFPRI website to create graphs, compare prices and commodities, and download food price data here.

The informal sector in China: The role of institutional reform and digital transformation on enterprise formalization

This paper examines the dynamic evolution of economic informality in China along two dimensions: business registration (the extensive margin) and formal labor protections within registered firms (the intensive margin). Leveraging administrative records alongside micro-survey data from OSOME (2020–2026) and ESIEC (2018 and 2025), we evaluate how institutional reforms and digital transformation shape formalization incentives. While market-oriented regulatory reforms—such as the landmark 2014 business registration reform—fueled an unprecedented expansion in formal enterprise creation, stringent labor regulations unintentionally inflated intensive-margin informality. Simultaneously, the rapid rise of digital platforms and fintech ecosystems has created a platform substitution effect, enabling micro-enterprises to access credit, build consumer trust, and operate flexibly without state licenses. Consequently, we observe an informality paradox: extensive-margin informality remains widespread and is counterintuitively higher in China's most developed, highly digitized cities.

Sustainable fisheries development and resilient coastal livelihoods in southern Yemen: Project research synthesis

This note synthesizes the research studies carried out under IFPRI’s Sustainable Fisheries Development and Resilient Coastal Livelihoods in Southern Yemen project. Key findings include:
- Fisheries development policy and assistance in Southern Yemen have faced large gaps in data and knowledge—particularly regarding fish consumption and food security implications, use of ice for chilling fish, and measurement and monitoring of artisanal fishing activities.
- Fish is a highly nutritious food, an important part of Yemeni diets, and much more affordable than meat. Improving household access to fish, especially in inland areas, is essential for improving food security and reducing malnutrition. Restoring and expanding domestic (and export) markets should be a priority of fisheries development policy.
- Ice is widely used within some links of artisanal fisheries value chains, but fishers and market retailers employ ice strategically. Consumers’ willingness to pay for ice use is low compared to the high cost of ice and the demand for high-quality fish is currently very limited, making ice use unprofitable for many small fishers. Investments in energy supply and ice production to lower costs and in consumer awareness campaigns on food safety and fish quality to increase willingness to pay are crucial to maintain an uninterrupted cold chain and achieve quality-led value addition in artisanal fisheries value chains.
- A complete fishing information and monitoring system for the Gulf of Aden that captures both artisanal and commercial fishing vessels is urgently needed for sustainable fisheries development. Deep-learning-based remote sensing provides a low-cost solution for high-frequency data collection to analyze and track difficult-to-detect artisanal fishing activities and changes in local fishing fleets.

From satellite images to real-world impact

In the paddy fields of Odisha, India, many farmers cultivate land they do not own, and thus do not have land titles that can be used as collateral to obtain formal credit for agricultural activities. Instead, they must rely on informal, often high-interest loans. But digital technologies are offering new ways to integrate smallholders into the financial system. In Odisha, satellite images would prove to be a crucial tool to verify what farmers grow—providing an alternative form of collateral and reliable access to credit.

Determinants of food price transmission from international to domestic markets

Food price transmission determines the speed of and extent to which international food price shocks affect domestic markets and consumers, an issue of particular importance in low-income countries. Incomplete food price transmission is also implicated in exacerbating international food price volatility because it makes global supply and demand less elastic. This paper explores the factors that influence the degree of price transmission from international maize, rice, and wheat markets to domestic food markets. Using 147,000 observations of monthly food prices, we first estimate food price transmission in 711 markets in 81 countries. Then, the degree of food price transmission across these 711 markets is estimated as a function of country and commodity characteristics.

The results from the first stage indicate that about half (48%) of the domestic food prices were cointegrated with their corresponding international grain price. Among the vector error correction (VEC) models, the median price transmission is 52% after 6 months and 69% after 12 months. Among the vector autoregressive (VAR) models, price transmission was markedly lower, with the median leveling off below 7% after four months. The second-stage results suggest that both market frictions and policy play a role in incomplete transmission of food prices. Food price transmission is significantly lower in landlocked countries, where grain imports or exports are a small share of domestic use, and in Africa and Asia relative to Europe and Latin America. Price transmission is also lower where grain tariffs are high and variable over time, suggesting that trade policy plays a role. These results appear relatively robust, with only minor changes when we estimate the model with different dependent variables, other combinations of independent variables, different thresholds for the stationarity tests, and alternative cointegration tests. The results have implications for the measurement of the welfare impact of international food price shocks and for strategies to reduce the volatility of international grain prices.

Myanmar monthly food price report – July 2026

Rice prices increased moderately in July 2026, with the national average rising by 3.6 percent month-on-month and 10.1 percent year-on-year. Regional price disparities persisted, reflecting differences in production conditions, market access, and transport costs.

Most export crop prices showed mixed movements. Maize prices declined following strong export activity earlier in the year, although prices remained well above year-earlier levels. Black gram and pigeon pea prices increased on expectations of stronger import demand from India, while green gram prices showed limited movements amid increasing quality requirements across export markets.

Most export crop prices showed mixed movements. Maize prices declined following strong export activity earlier in the year, although prices remained well above year-earlier levels. Black gram and pigeon pea prices increased on expectations of stronger import demand from India, while green gram prices showed limited movements amid increasing quality requirements across export markets.

Most animal-sourced food prices remained substantially above year-earlier levels, while month-on-month movements were mixed. Chicken and egg prices increased notably amid higher feed costs, limited supplies of large-sized chickens, and reduced egg production associated with higher input costs and disease outbreaks. Mutton prices remained at record highs. Fish prices also remained above previous year, although increased catches following the resumption of fishing activities contributed to lower prices for some fish products.

The conflict in Iran and the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a major transit route for global oil and fertilizer trade, are raising concerns for Myanmar’s agrifood system, which depends heavily on fuel for transportation, irrigation, mechanization, and processing. During the 2026 monsoon, some farmers reported cultivating smaller areas or reducing plowings because of higher fuel costs. Fertilizer prices also remain substantially above last year’s levels, while crop output prices have changed relatively little, reducing the profitability of fertilizer use and potentially leading to lower application rates and agricultural production.

Flooding has affected monsoon rice cultivation in some areas, while flood warnings have been issued for other parts of the country, including areas along the Bago and Sittaung rivers. While the reported impacts on rice cultivation remain geographically limited, continued monitoring of flood conditions will be important given potential implications for crop production, transportation, and food supply chains.

Collaborative leadership strengthens research capacity and climate action: Lessons from Tamil Nadu, India

Key takeaways
- Local leadership builds lasting research capacity. In a collaborative project in Tamil Nadu, transferring ownership to local partners helped to ensure long-term sustainability.
- Aligning research with local priorities improves impact. Collaboration with local and national stakeholders strengthened adoption and relevance.
- Capacity development goes beyond technical training. Management, communication, and leadership skills were critical to project success.

A gender-just food systems transition

What works to strengthen climate resilience for smallholder farmers? Evidence from Kenya

Smallholder farmers face increasing climate uncertainty that makes investing in agriculture both more important and more risky. Droughts, erratic rainfall, and other weather shocks threaten crop production, while rising input costs and volatile markets make it difficult to recover from a poor harvest. As a result, many farmers hesitate to invest in technologies that could improve productivity and resilience, including crop insurance, stress-tolerant crop varieties, agronomic advice, and other productivity-enhancing innovations.

Many of these technologies already exist, yet adoption remains low. Insurance products may not inspire confidence, farmers may not understand how different technologies complement one another, digital advisory services may fail to engage users, and women often face additional barriers to accessing agricultural services and participating in agricultural decision-making. Strengthening farmers' resilience therefore requires more than developing new technologies—it also requires designing, delivering, and scaling them in ways that reflect how farmers make decisions and the constraints they face.

To better understand how to strengthen farmers' resilience to climate-related risks, researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Wageningen University partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE Africa), and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) to evaluate a package of innovations across seven counties in Kenya. Through randomized evaluations and complementary qualitative research involving more than 6,000 smallholder farmers, the partnership generated evidence on how the design, delivery, and accessibility of agricultural risk-management tools influence farmers' adoption decisions and resilience to climate shocks.

This brief synthesizes the key lessons and highlights their implications for governments, insurers, agricultural service providers, and development partners.

Financing social protection in Africa: Lessons for strengthening social protection systems in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has made significant strides in its effort to expand social protection programs, both in terms of expanding coverage and in terms of variety and investment in these programs. However, Ethiopia’s social protection system continues to face significant challenges amid growing demand for social assistance and competing needs. Despite the expansion in coverage, the share of population benefiting from social protection programs remains far below demand and global averages. Similarly, spending and sources of finance for social protection remain relatively limited, with the financing structure of many programs being heavily dependent on external donor support, raising concerns about long-term sustainability. At the same time, the country continues to face an increasing demand for social assistance due to climate shocks, conflict, and economic volatility. In this paper, we compile evidence and compare Ethiopia’s experience with selected successful cases (from Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa) to draw lessons for strengthening sustainability in financing of social protection programs. By assessing both the achievements and remaining challenges, we draw recommendations on how Ethiopia can strengthen its social protection system, both in terms of coverage and sustainability. While Ethiopia can still increase public finance on social protection programs and improve allocation of public finance as well as efficiency in targeting and delivering social protection, we also identify some innovative and unconventional sources of finance to support safety net programs. These include: social or development impact bonds, climate and disaster risk financing, as well as blended public-private investments for development and social goals. We also identify some domestic experiences and community-level indigenous arrangements that can be scaled-up further. We finally highlight that tapping these financing mechanisms and arrangements entail strengthening domestic and indigenous institutions as well as trust in public-private partnerships.

When the rains fail, who goes hungry? Rainfall, gender, and child nutrition in Papua New Guinea

Key takeaways
- Low rainfall hurts young girls’ nutrition. A study in PNG found that below-average rainfall in a child’s first year of life reduced height-for-age and weight-for-age scores for girls under 5, while boys showed no comparable effects.
- Even routine rainfall shortfalls matter. The analysis focused on normal year-to-year rainfall variation, not major disasters, yet still found measurable impacts on child nutrition in rural PNG.
- Drought responses should consider gender. As PNG prepares for a potential El Niño-driven drought, policymakers may need targeted measures to protect girls and address unequal household burdens during food shortages.

Toward scalable agricultural insurance: Early evidence from a dynamic trigger program in Kenya

Smallholder farmers in Kenya face substantial production and marketing risks driven by climate variability. In the arid and semi-arid areas of Eastern Kenya, rainfall is erratic even within a single season, yet most farmers depend on rain-fed production with little or no access to irrigation, credit, or savings to fall back on. Without a way to cushion these shocks, farmers are often reluctant to invest in inputs such as improved seed, fertilizer, and better agronomic practices that could raise their yields and resilience in good years. It is this chronic exposure to unpredictable and largely uninsurable risk that led the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in collaboration with Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture, to design and scale an agricultural index insurance product for farmers in Eastern Kenya under the Kenya Agricultural Insurance Program (KAIP).

Policy responses to rising global fuel prices: A rapid assessment for Papua New Guinea

Global crude oil prices have surged following the war in Iran and disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz, creating a dual economic challenge for Papua New Guinea (PNG). Rising import costs have triggered severe imported inflation, while Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and crude oil exports deliver windfall revenues. In response, the government introduced a K1 billion (USD 230 million) relief package to freeze fuel prices and waive excise duties and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). This study examines three policy issues: the pass-through of higher import costs to domestic food and non-food prices and their effects on food consumption; the broader macroeconomic implications of sustained global fuel shocks; and the fiscal trade-offs of fuel subsidies against LNG export gains. Short-run price multiplier analysis shows rapid transmission of import costs to consumer prices and household microsimulation analysis shows commensurate effects on household food consumption. Medium-term Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA) model simulations reveal PNG’s dependence on refined petroleum imports leaves GDP vulnerable to contraction, even as LNG revenues rise. Windfalls accrue mainly to capital-intensive resource firms, while real exchange rate appreciation undermines competitiveness. Fuel subsidies stabilize consumer prices but cannot offset wider macroeconomic volatility. Policy options include recalibrating subsidies to allow gradual price adjustment, maintaining a managed exchange rate with controlled depreciation, and diversifying exports beyond LNG to strengthen resilience against external shocks.

Modernizing Bangladesh's social protection system: Priorities for greater effectiveness

Bangladesh has made considerable progress in reducing poverty and improving human development, with social protection playing an important role in protecting vulnerable households and supporting human capital. The Government has demonstrated a strong commitment to social protection, particularly through the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) adopted in 2015 and subsequent efforts to streamline programs.

Despite this progress, the social protection system faces persistent challenges. The system remains fragmented across numerous programs and ministries, significant targeting errors persist, and benefit levels are often inadequate. A substantial share of social protection spending is directed toward programs that do not primarily benefit the poor, while many vulnerable households remain inadequately covered. Addressing these shortcomings has become increasingly important as Bangladesh confronts rising food prices, slower economic growth, and climate-related risks.

Bangladesh now has an important opportunity to modernize social protection. Recent efforts to consolidate programs and the introduction of the Family Card Program provide a foundation for building a more coherent, inclusive, and effective system. The priority should be to improve the quality and effectiveness of spending rather than simply increase the overall budget.

This policy note presents a roadmap for building a more efficient, equitable, and adaptive social protection system. It recommends scaling up successful programs while phasing out inefficient ones. By improving targeting and reducing benefit leakage, social protection coverage for poor households can be significantly expanded even within the current budget.

The gendered game: Effects of experiential learning on decision-making and water saving in India

This paper addresses two key questions related to gender equity, agricultural production, and sustainable natural resource management. First, given the importance of women’s decision-making in agriculture for their own empowerment and better agricultural outcomes, what are effective ways to strengthen women’s participation in agricultural decision-making? Second, is women’s participation in agricultural decisions associated with more water-conserving production choices? We analyze these questions by examining the impact of a novel experiential learning intervention with games, debriefing, and crop water budgeting, designed to address groundwater depletion in India. Results of a randomized control trial in 472 communities indicate that playing the game significantly increased women’s participation in choosing the crops their household grows in the post-monsoon season—specifically, their likelihood of deciding alone. Men who played the game were also more likely to make crop choice decisions alone, though the effect was smaller. Path analysis shows women’s involvement in crop decision-making is associated with more water-conserving decisions: women who decide alone report their household grows significantly less water-consumptive crops and irrigates less land in the post-monsoon season, when groundwater is scarce. Even when women decide jointly with their husbands, households grow less water-consumptive crops, though the effect is smaller. By contrast, when men and women decide with other relatives, households cultivate more area overall, suggesting that the learning from the game is less effective when more people are involved in decisions. Experiential learning games are thus a promising strategy to strengthen women’s agricultural decision-making, and this may also lead to more sustainable resource management.

Market intelligence, entrepreneurial behavior, and profitability in agriculture: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in northern Uganda

Smallholder farmers often make production decisions with limited information about market conditions, leading to suboptimal farm profits. This challenge is particularly important in the production of fruits and vegetables, which are often rich in micronutrients and can serve as high-value cash crops but are also highly perishable. We evaluate a bundled, market-oriented horticulture intervention in northern Uganda designed to shift farmers’ mindset from “grow and sell” to “grow to sell”, by promoting their engagement in active market intelligence activities, in addition to support for production. Using a cluster-randomized design combined with panel data methods, we find that treated farmers increased production revenues by 20–25%, profit margins by about 11 percentage points, and prices received by roughly 20%, without increasing family labor use. These gains are accompanied by noticeable behavioral changes, including more frequent and more diverse collection of price information and expanded buyer networks. Mediation analysis indicates that improvements in market intelligence explain a meaningful share of these effects. The results suggest that interventions that strengthen farmers’ ability to align production decisions with market demand can generate substantial income gains. These findings highlight the importance of integrating market intelligence into agricultural extension systems.

What will it take to sustain a national school feeding program in Nigeria? Lessons from two decades of implementation

Nigeria’s experience with school feeding over the past two decades has been characterized by repeated starts, interruptions, and attempts to rebuild the program. The Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Programme was launched in 2005, but implementation was discontinued several years later after federal funding ceased. The program was revived in 2016 as the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) and expanded to a reported 9.9 million beneficiaries by 2022. However, NHGSFP implementation then stalled, and the program was formally suspended in January 2024. NHGSFP has since been restructured as the Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (RHNHGSFP). However, implementation has so far been limited to pilot activities in Lagos and Kano states.

Experiences at the state level show that school feeding programs can succeed when state governments are willing and able to finance and manage the program. Osun continued its program after federal funding was withdrawn. The state later operated O-Meals with state government support, although the program is no longer running. Zamfara and Kebbi provide a more recent example. Zamfara state introduced a school feeding pilot in 2025 and has since begun expanding it, with early evidence of increased school attendance, while Kebbi is currently feeding some junior and senior secondary schools through state funding. These experiences point to the importance of state government commitment, financing, and capacity to manage program delivery.

Several weaknesses are evident across the federal and state experiences. School feeding programs still lack a dedicated national statutory framework. Coordination between institutions and across levels of government remains weak. Financing has not kept pace with rising food prices, and the role of aggregators and wholesalers in the food supply chain is not adequately monitored. Finally, school feeding program monitoring systems focus more on the number of children fed than on whether the program is achieving its intended education, nutrition, and livelihood outcomes.

The main issue, therefore, is not whether school feeding can work in Nigeria. It can. Rather, it is whether the country has the institutional arrangements to keep school feeding programs running when political leadership, funding conditions, and administrative structures change. The experience of the past two decades suggests that another relaunch of a national school feeding program, without addressing these institutional weaknesses, risks repeating the same cycle of expansion and interruption. The focus should therefore be on putting in place the legal, financing, coordination, supply-chain, and accountability arrangements needed to support a program that can be sustained over time.

Conservation and restoration actions in a multifunctional landscape: Lessons from Tunisia

Key takeaways

Multifunctional landscapes deliver food, income, and environmental gains together. Across four sites in northwestern Tunisia, treating land, water, agriculture, and ecosystems as one system improved soil, water, biodiversity, productivity, and incomes at once.

There is no single template for success—many models work. Farmer-led innovation, community action, public forest management, and public-private partnership each succeed; choosing the right one depends on local land tenure and governance.

Evidence drives adoption—yet the full value of these landscapes has yet to be documented. Measurement converts skeptics into investors. An IFPRI-ICARDA effort to evaluate ecosystem services across these sites aims to close that gap.