International Food Policy Research Institute

About: International Food Policy Research Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Agriculture & Food security. The organization has 1217 authors who have published 4952 publications receiving 218436 citations.

Peanut Research and Poverty Reduction: Impacts of Variety Improvement to Control Peanut Viruses in Uganda

Abstract: A procedure is developed and applied for predicting ex ante impacts of agricultural research on aggregate poverty, using as an example the poverty-reducing impact of peanut research in Uganda. Market-level information on economic surplus changes is combined with a procedure for allocating income changes to individual households. Characteristics of farmers that affect their likelihood of technology adoption are used to create a technology adoption profile. Associated changes in poverty resulting from adoption are computed using poverty indices. Predicted income changes at the household level are aggregated to the market level and reconciled with calculations of economic surplus changes.

Land Allocation Effects of the Global Ethanol Surge: Predictions from the International FAPRI Model

Abstract: We quantify the emergence of biofuel markets and its impact on U.S. and world agriculture for the coming decade using the multi-market multi-commodity international FAPRI model. The model incorporates the tradeoffs between biofuel, feed, and food production and consumption and international feedback effects of the emergence through world commodity prices and trade. We examine land allocation by type of crop, and pasture use for countries growing feedstock for ethanol (corn, sorghum, wheat, sugarcane, and other grains) and major crops competing with feedstock for land resources such as oilseeds. We shock the model with exogenous changes in ethanol demand, first in the United States, then in Brazil, China, EU, and India, and compute shock multipliers for land allocation decisions for crops and countries of interest. The multipliers show at the margin how sensitive land allocation is to the growing demand for ethanol. Land moves away from major crops and pasture competing for resources with feedstock crops. Because of the high U.S. tariff on ethanol, higher U.S. demand for ethanol translates into a U.S. ethanol production expansion. The latter has global effects on land allocation as higher coarse grains prices transmit worldwide. Changes in U.S. coarse grain prices also affect U.S. wheat and oilseeds prices, which are all transmitted to world markets. In contrast, expansion in Brazil ethanol use and production chiefly affects land used for sugarcane production in Brazil and to a lesser extent in other sugar-producing countries, but with small impact on other land uses in most countries.

Resource abundance and regional development in China1

Abstract: Over the past several decades, China has made tremendous progress in market integration and infrastructure development. Demand for natural resources has increased from the booming coastal economies, causing the terms of trade to favour the resource sector, which is predominantly based in the interior regions of the country. However, the gap in economic development level between the coastal and inland regions has widened significantly. In this paper, using a panel dataset at the provincial level, we show that Chinese provinces with abundant resources perform worse than their resource-poor counterparts in terms of per capita consumption growth. This trend that resource-poor areas are better off than resource-rich areas is particularly prominent in rural areas. Because of the institutional arrangements regarding property rights of natural resources, most gains from the resource boom have been captured either by the government- or state-owned enterprises. Thus, the windfall of natural resources has more to do with government consumption than household consumption. Moreover, in resource-rich areas, greater revenues accrued from natural resources bid up the price of non-tradable goods and hurt the competitiveness of the local economy.