IFPRI Research Monograph

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Latest release: January 1, 2011
Series
17
Books
Meeting Food Needs in the Developing World: The Location and Magnitude of the Task in the Next Decade
Book 1·Jan 1976
5.0
·
Free
Recent and Prospective Developments in Food Consumption: Some Policy Issues
Book 2·Jan 1977
5.0
·
Free
Food Needs of Developing Countries: Projections of Production and Consumption to 1990
Book 3·Jan 1977
5.0
·
Free
The production recor, 1960-75; Sources of growth in cereal production; A global view of food needs; Effects of changing production and population assumptions on projected gross deficits; The dietary energy gap in developing makets economies.
The Impact of Agroforestry-based Soil Fertility Replenishment Practices on the Poor in Western Kenya
Book 142·Jan 2005
5.0
·
Free
It is widely accepted that food production benefits from agricultural research, but whether that research benefits the poor is less certain. In 2000, the World Agroforestry Centre and the International Food Policy Research Institute began examining the impact of soil fertility replenishment technologies on the poor in western Kenya. This report is one of seven case studies that comprise a broader IFPRI-managed study designed to determine how agricultural research is benefiting poor people. The goal of this broader study is to identify the conditions under which agricultural research reduces poverty and to improve the targeting of research to the changing needs of the poor. The study develops methods for evaluating the impact of agricultural research on poverty in the context of different agricultural technologies and within different country, social, and institutional settings. It also establishes a foundation that allows agricultural research centers to assess the impact of their work, identify research priorities, and guide technological design to increase future impact on poverty.
Rural Development Policies and Sustainable Land Use in the Hillside Areas of Honduras: A Quantitative Livelihoods Approach
Book 147·Jan 2006
4.7
·
Free
Poverty is deep and widespread in Honduras. This is especially the case in the hillside areas—home to one-third of the country’s population, the majority of whom earn their living through agriculture. While both policymakers and donors are under strong pressure to provide adequate interventions, they require guidance on what drives sustainable rural productivity growth, how to prioritize expenditures, and how to formulate effective development strategies. In this report, the authors develop an integrated econometric framework, based on the livelihoods concept, and demonstrate how it can be used as a policy targeting tool. Using this framework, the authors provide policymakers and stakeholders with empirical information on the livelihood strategies currently employed in the hillside areas of Honduras, existing opportunities for alleviating poverty, and potential priorities for policy and investments.
Agricultural Producer Support Estimates for Developing Countries: Measurement Issues and Evidence from India, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam
Book 152·Jan 2007
5.0
·
Free
This study analyzes the evolution of agricultural policies from 1985 to 2002 in India, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam and provides empirical estimates of the degree of protection or disprotection to agriculture in these four countries, both by key commodities and in aggregate… Taken together the reported measures of support and disprotection of specific crops and agriculture in total provide a reasonable basis for assessing the stance of agricultural policies of India, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam. Attention to measurement issues provides a sensitivity analysis. The results reported are indicative of the range of outcomes likely to be found more broadly among developing countries. From regimes of heavy intervention in agricultural markets, each of the four countries in the study has undergone a substantial reform process.
The Role of Agriculture in Development: Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa
Book 153·Jan 2007
4.5
·
Free
This report provides a nuanced perspective on debates about the potential for Africa’s smallholder agriculture to stimulate growth and alleviate poverty in an increasingly integrated world. In particular, the paper synthesizes both the traditional theoretical literature on agriculture’s role in the development process and discusses more recent literature that remains skeptical about agriculture’s development potential for Africa. In order to examine in greater detail the relevance for Africa of both the “old” and “new” literatures on agriculture, the paper provides a typology of African countries based on their stage of development, agricultural conditions, natural resources, and geographic location. More broadly, the paper demonstrates that conventional theory on the role of agriculture in the early stage of development remains relevant to Africa. While the continent does face new and different challenges than those encountered by Asian and Latin American countries during their successful transformations, most African countries cannot significantly reduce poverty, increase per capita incomes, and transform into modern economies without focusing on agricultural development.
Linkages Between Land Management, Land Degradation, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Uganda
Book 159·Jan 2008
5.0
·
Free
Agriculture is vital to the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa: two-thirds of the region’s people depend on it for their livelihoods. Nevertheless, agricultural productivity in most of the region is stagnant or declining, in large part because of land degradation. Soil erosion and soil nutrient depletion degraded almost 70 percent of the region’s land between 1945 and 1990; 20 percent of total agricultural land has been severely degraded. If left unchecked, land degradation could seriously threaten the progress of economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa.

Within this context, most African countries strive to achieve poverty reduction and sustainable land management. In designing policies to achieve these objectives concurrently, a clear understanding of their linkage is crucial. Nonetheless, the relationships between poverty and land management are complex, context specific, and resource specific, and empirical evidence to demonstrate their linkage has been limited.

This analysis seeks to improve the understanding of this linkage by examining how poverty (broadly defined to include limited access to capital, infrastructure, and services) influences land-management practices, land degradation, crop productivity, and household incomes. In particular, the study focuses on how factors susceptible to policy initiatives-such as education, agricultural technical assistance, and credit- affect households’ land management decisions.

Uganda was chosen to serve as a case study of these issues, for several reasons. Of all Sub-Saharan African nations, Uganda has some of the most severe soil nutrient depletion in Africa: about 1.2 percent of nutrient stock stored in the topsoil is depleted by farmers each year. Also, the country contains a wide variety of agroecological zones (AEZs), making it an appropriate microcosm of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Ugandan government has also been conducting ambitious poverty-reduction and conservation efforts, and a study such as this one serves to measure those efforts.

Working with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), the authors drew on Uganda’s 2002-03 National Household Survey, as well as a specific survey conducted to collect poverty, land management, and land-degradation data at the household and plot levels.

Cooperatives for Staple Crop Marketing: Evidence from Ethiopia
Book 164·Jan 2010
4.6
·
Free
Rural producer organizations, such as farmers' organizations or rural cooperatives, offer a means for smallholder farmers in developing countries to sell their crops commercially. They hold particular promise for Sub-Saharan Africa, where small-scale farming is the primary livelihood but commercialization of foodcrops is very limited. Using the experience of smallholders in Ethiopia as a case study, this research monograph identifies the benefits of rural producer organizations for small farmers, as well as the conditions under which such organizations most successfully promote smallholder commercialization. The evidence from Ethiopia indicates that they do increase farmers' profits from crop sales, but that the beneficiaries do not tend to be the poorest smallholders. Moreover, a rural producer organization's marketing effectiveness is precarious: it can easily diminish if the number or diversity of its members increases or if it provides more nonmarketing services. The authors conclude that these organizations have a role to play in the agricultural development of Sub-Saharan Africa, but that role should be complemented by other programs that directly target the poorest farmers. Further, the effectiveness of rural producer organizations should be preserved by allowing them to follow their own agendas rather than being encouraged to take on nonmarketing activities. The assessment of rural producer organizations presented in this monograph should be a valuable resource for policymakers and researchers concerned with economic development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Reflections on the Global Food Crisis: How Did It Happen? How Has It Hurt? and How Can We Prevent the Next One?
Book 165·Jan 2010
4.0
·
Free
The dramatic surge in food prices from 2005 to 2008 seriously threatened the world's poor, who struggle to buy food even under normal circumstances, and led to protests and riots in the developing world. The crisis eventually receded, but such surges could recur unless steps are taken to prevent them. Using up-to-date information, the authors of Reflections on the Global Food Crisis identify the key causes of the food price surge, its consequences for global poverty, and the challenges involved in preventing another crisis. Breaking from many earlier interpretations, the authors conclude that the crisis was not primarily fostered by increased demand for meat products in rising economies such as China and India or by declines in agricultural yields or food stocks, or by futures market speculation. Instead, they attribute the rising food prices to a combination of rising energy prices, growing demand for biofuels, the U.S. dollar depreciation; and various trade shocks related to export restrictions, panic purchases and unfavorable weather. As part of their analysis, the authors also provide the first comprehensive review of both the macroeconomic and microeconomic consequences of the crisis, as well as a detailed comparison of the current crisis with the food price crisis of 1974. To prevent another crisis, the authors conclude that the global food system should be reformed through several key steps: make trade in agricultural commodities more free yet more secure; address long-term threats to agricultural productivity, such as climate change and resource degradation; scale up social protection in potentially food insecure countries; and encourage agricultural production in at least some of the countries now heavily dependent on food imports. Reflections on the Global Food Crisis will be a valuable resource for policymakers, development specialists, and others concerned with the world's poorest people.
Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Rwanda
Book 166·Jan 2010
4.5
·
Free
Although Rwanda has made considerable progress in recovering politically and economically from the devastating effects of the 1994 genocide, the poverty rate is still higher and the gross domestic product lower than before the genocide. Poverty reduction and economic growth would receive much-needed support from increased agricultural growth. This study assesses alternative agricultural development strategies, identifying areas in which policy reforms, together with public and private investment, can best promote Rwandan agriculture. The authors evaluate the potential of several different agricultural subsectors-grains, root crops, livestock, and others-to contribute to national agricultural growth and poverty reduction. They conclude that growth in staple crops, particularly root crops such as cassava and potatoes, has the greatest potential to encourage economywide growth and poverty reduction. Promoting the necessary staple crop growth will require the allocation of public resources to the agricultural sector to increase significantly, reaching 10 percent of the total government budget. It will also require rethinking Rwanda's earlier emphasis on promoting export crop growth, which has proved inadequate in encouraging poverty reduction while also posing environmental problems. This study makes an important contribution to the debate over the most effective development strategies for Rwanda and other Sub-Saharan African nations.Show More Show Less
Trade Liberalization and Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa
Book 168·Jan 2009
5.0
·
Free
Agricultural trade liberalization has been resisted by many developing-country policymakers, including those in the Middle East and North Africa, for fear it could hurt domestic farmers and exacerbate poverty. The authors of Trade Liberalization and Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa argue, however, that this concern about liberalization might be misplaced. Drawing on case studies from Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia, the study uses household survey data and computable general equilibrium models to simulate the effects of various liberalization scenarios on different types of households in these countries, especially poor households. The results indicate that agricultural trade barriers are not an effective means of protecting the poor and that the benefits from many forms of agricultural trade liberalization to the region's consumers outweigh the costs to producers. If complemented with other domestic programs-including agricultural research and extension, information services, disease control, and social safety nets-the reforms have the potential to reduce poverty in these nations. The study findings are a valuable resource for policymakers and development specialists evaluating the role trade liberalization can play in economic development and poverty reduction.
Human Capital Formation: History, Expectations, and Challenges in South Africa
Book 169·Jan 2010
5.0
·
Free
Yield Gaps and Potential Agricultural Growth in West and Central Africa
Book 170·Jan 2011
4.3
·
Free
West and Central African nations face major obstacles to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of cutting poverty and hunger in half by 2015, not least among them the fragile state of their agriculture. Although most regional economies depend on agriculture for employment, national income, and export revenues, farm productivity tends to be low, owing to relatively little use of chemical fertilizers, improved seeds, and other modern technologies. Yield Gaps and Potential Agricultural Growth in West and Central Africa responds to this problem by identifying potential areas of growth in the agricultural and livestock sectors. Using data on the soil, water availability, and weather in different parts of West and Central Africa, the authors find significant gaps in different locations between the potential and actual yield of various agricultural products. They then use an economywide multimarket model to simulate the future economic effects of closing these yield gaps. In coastal nations, crops such as cassava, cereals, and yams have the greatest yield gaps, whereas, in the Sahel, livestock, rice, coarse grains and oilseeds (groundnuts) have more room for growth. Although identifying these yield gaps does not guarantee that they can be closed, it does provide a focus for development efforts in the region. The authors conclude, moreover, that if such efforts involve transnational cooperation in agricultural research, marketing, and other areas, they could produce significant benefits across West and Central Africa. This study's findings will be of interest to policymakers, researchers, and others concerned with African development.
Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050: Scenarios, Results, Policy Options
Book 172·Jan 2010
3.8
·
Free
As the global population grows and incomes in poor countries rise, so too, will the demand for food, placing additional pressure on sustainable food production. Climate change adds a further challenge, as changes in temperature and precipitation threaten agricultural productivity and the capacity to feed the world's population. This study assesses how serious the danger to food security might be and suggests some steps policymakers can take to remedy the situation.Using various modeling techniques, the authors project 15 different future scenarios for food security through 2050. Each scenario involves an alternative combination of potential population and income growth and climate change. The authors also examine the specific test case of a hypothetical extended drought in South Asia, to demonstrate the possible effects of increased climate variability on a particular world region. They conclude that the negative effects of climate change on food security can be counteracted by broad-based economic growthparticularly improved agricultural productivityand robust international trade in agricultural products to offset regional shortages. In pursuit of these goals, policymakers should increase public investment in land, water, and nutrient use and maintain relatively free international trade. This inquiry into the future of food security should be of use to policymakers and others concerned with the impact of climate change on international development.
Estimating the Impact of Access to Infrastructure and Extension Services in Rural Nepal
Book 173·Jan 2011
5.0
·
Free
During the period of Nepal's ninth five-year plan (19972002), agricultural growth in the predominantly rural society was disappointing. The recent peace process, however, gives the country new opportunities to develop its economy with less interference due to internal conflict. This research monograph investigates how Nepal might seize these opportunities by increasing agricultural growth and poverty reduction through improvements in roads, irrigation, and rural extension. The authors evaluate the impact of public investments in these areas by using two types of data and methodology: a hedonic approach that relates access to public infrastructure and services to land value and a panel of household-level data on consumption, poverty, and income. The hedonic methodology suggests a positive relationship between investments in irrigation and extension and household welfare, although the panel data approach suggests otherwise. This result reinforces the importance of methodology in evaluating rural investments. Rural roads yielded more clear-cut findings, however: both approaches agree that investment there has a positive relationship with household welfare, as measured in land values, consumption growth, poverty reduction, or agricultural income growth. The authors recommend increased public investments in rural roads, irrigation, and extension, as well as further research into precisely how infrastructure and services affect rural households' welfare and how their effectiveness can be improved. This monograph will be useful to policymakers, researchers, and others concerned with Nepal's future development.
The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform in India: Fertilizers and Electricity for Irrigation
Book 174·Jan 2011
5.0
·
Free
Agricultural policy reform is one of the major challenges facing India today. Such reform is required to reduce poverty through faster agricultural growth and to promote more sustainable use of natural resources while ensuring food security. Subsidy policies that promote the use of fertilizer and of electricity for groundwater irrigation are in particular need of reform. While subsidies for these two inputs played a crucial role in achieving India's Green Revolution, they have been criticized during the past decade for benefitting large-scale farmers more than smallholders, placing a fiscal burden on the state, and having negative environmental effects. By analyzing the evolution of these input subsidy policies and examining the political processes involved in efforts to reform them, this study throws new light on the factors that have so far prevented a move toward more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable agricultural input policies in India. The authors show that electoral politics, institutional factors, and policy paradigms or belief systems all play an important role in blocking reform. They identify several policy reform options as well as political strategies that can overcome past obstacles to reform. Community-based policy solutions, new coalitions for policy reform, fresh approaches to the policy debate, innovative and consensus-oriented forms of deliberation, and effective use of research-based knowledge can all make positive contributions to Indian policy reform. The analyses and proposals presented in this study will be a valuable resource for policymakers and stakeholders concerned with the politics of agricultural development.

Free of charge

Meeting Food Needs in the Developing World: The Location and Magnitude of the Task in the Next Decade
International Food Policy Research Institute
Book 1
5.0
Free
Recent and Prospective Developments in Food Consumption: Some Policy Issues
Gavan, James D.
Book 2
5.0
Free
Food Needs of Developing Countries: Projections of Production and Consumption to 1990
Book 3
5.0
Free
The Impact of Agroforestry-based Soil Fertility Replenishment Practices on the Poor in Western Kenya
Place, Frank
Book 142•Engineering
5.0
Free
Rural Development Policies and Sustainable Land Use in the Hillside Areas of Honduras: A Quantitative Livelihoods Approach
Jansen, Hans G. P.
Book 147•Business & investing
4.7
Free
Agricultural Producer Support Estimates for Developing Countries: Measurement Issues and Evidence from India, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam
Orden, David
Book 152
5.0
Free
The Role of Agriculture in Development: Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa
Xinshen Diao
Book 153•Business & investing
4.5
Free
Linkages Between Land Management, Land Degradation, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Uganda
Nkonya, Ephraim
Book 159
5.0
Free
Cooperatives for Staple Crop Marketing: Evidence from Ethiopia
Tanguy Bernard
Book 164•Business & investing
4.6
Free
Reflections on the Global Food Crisis: How Did It Happen? How Has It Hurt? and How Can We Prevent the Next One?
Derek Headey
Book 165•Business & investing
4.0
Free