Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie

Bio: Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie is an academic researcher from Michigan State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Agricultural productivity & Poverty. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 85 publications receiving 1058 citations. Previous affiliations of Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie include CGIAR & University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

A scoping review of market links between value chain actors and small-scale producers in developing regions

Abstract: Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to end hunger, achieve food and nutrition security and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. This requires that small-scale producers be included in, and benefit from, the rapid growth and transformation under way in food systems. Small-scale producers interact with various actors when they link with markets, including product traders, logistics firms, processors and retailers. The literature has explored primarily how large firms interact with farmers through formal contracts and resource provision arrangements. Although important, contracts constitute a very small share of smallholder market interactions. There has been little exploration of whether non-contract interactions between small farmers and both small- and large-scale value chain actors have affected small farmers’ livelihoods. This scoping review covers 202 studies on that topic. We find that non-contract interactions, de facto mostly with small and medium enterprises, benefit small-scale producers via similar mechanisms that the literature has previously credited to large firms. Small and medium enterprises, not just large enterprises, address idiosyncratic market failures and asset shortfalls of small-scale producers by providing them, through informal arrangements, with complementary services such as input provision, credit, information and logistics. Providing these services directly supports Sustainable Development Goal 2 by improving farmer welfare through technology adoption and greater productivity. To promote sustainable agriculture, small-scale producers must be included in the transformation of food systems. This scoping review finds that non-contract interactions provide producers with services such as credit, information and logistics.

The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Abstract: The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a new survey-based index designed to measure the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector. The WEAI was initially developed as a tool to reflect women’s empowerment that may result from the United States government’s Feed the Future Initiative, which commissioned the development of the WEAI. The WEAI can also be used more generally to assess the state of empowerment and gender parity in agriculture, to identify key areas in which empowerment needs to be strengthened, and to track progress over time. The WEAI is an aggregate index, reported at the country or regional level, based on individual-level data collected by interviewing men and women within the same households. The WEAI comprises two subindexes. The first assesses the degree to which women are empowered in five domains of empowerment (5DE) in agriculture. It reflects the percentage of women who are empowered and, among those who are not, the percentage of domains in which women enjoy adequate achievements. These domains are (1) decisions about agricultural production, (2) access to and decisionmaking power about productive resources, (3) control of use of income, (4) leadership in the community, and (5) time allocation. The second subindex (the Gender Parity Index [GPI]) measures gender parity. The GPI reflects the percentage of women who are empowered or whose achievements are at least as high as the men in their households. For those households that have not achieved gender parity, the GPI shows the empowerment gap that needs to be closed for women to reach the same level of empowerment as men. This technical paper documents the development of the WEAI and presents pilot data from Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Uganda, so that researchers and practitioners seeking to use the index in their own work would understand how the survey questionnaires were developed and piloted, how the qualitative case studies were undertaken, how the index was constructed, how various indicators were validated, and how it can be used in other settings.

Current and future role of Haber–Bosch ammonia in a carbon-free energy landscape

Abstract: The future of a carbon-free society relies on the alignment of the intermittent production of renewable energy with our continuous and increasing energy demands. Long-term energy storage in molecules with high energy content and density such as ammonia can act as a buffer versus short-term storage (e.g. batteries). In this paper, we demonstrate that the Haber–Bosch ammonia synthesis loop can indeed enable a second ammonia revolution as energy vector by replacing the CO2 intensive methane-fed process with hydrogen produced by water splitting using renewable electricity. These modifications demand a redefinition of the conventional Haber–Bosch process with a new optimisation beyond the current one which was driven by cheap and abundant natural gas and relaxed environmental concerns during the last century. Indeed, the switch to electrical energy as fuel and feedstock to replace fossil fuels (e.g. methane) will lead to dramatic energy efficiency improvements through the use of high efficiency electrical motors and complete elimination of direct CO2 emissions. Despite the technical feasibility of the electrically-driven Haber–Bosch ammonia, the question still remains whether such revolution will take place. We reveal that its success relies on two factors: increased energy efficiency and the development of small-scale, distributed and agile processes that can align to the geographically isolated and intermittent renewable energy sources. The former requires not only higher electrolyser efficiencies for hydrogen production but also a holistic approach to the ammonia synthesis loop with the replacement of the condensation separation step by alternative technologies such as absorption and catalysis development. Such innovations will open the door to moderate pressure systems, the development and deployment of novel ammonia synthesis catalysts, and even more importantly, the opportunity for integration of reaction and separation steps to overcome equilibrium limitations. When realised, green ammonia will reshape the current energy landscape by directly replacing fossil fuels in transportation, heating, electricity, etc., and as done in the last century, food.