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: Food security & Agriculture. The organization has 1217 authors who have published 4952 publications receiving 218436 citations.

Water rights and multiple water uses: framework and application to Kirindi Oya irrigation system, Sri Lanka

Abstract: The growing attention to water rights in recent years reflects the increasing scarcity and competition for this vital resource. Because rights are at the heart of any water allocation system, they are also critical for any reallocation. Not only efficiency, but also fundamental issues of equity are at stake. To understand water rights requires going beyond formal statutory law (which may or may not be followed), to look at the many bases for claiming water. Because of the vital nature of this resource, state law, religious law, customary law and local norms all have something to say in defining water rights. The delineation of water rights is further complicated when we take into consideration multiple uses (irrigation, domestic, fishing, livestock, industries, etc.) as well as multiple users (different villages, groups of farmers in the head and tail, fishermen, cattle owners, etc.) of the resource. These overlapping uses bring in different government agencies, as well as different sets of norms and rules related to water. This paper provides a framework for examining the statutory and customary water rights of multiple users of water and applies it in the Kirindi Oya irrigation system in Sri Lanka, based on a multidisciplinary study conducted in 1997-1998. It demonstrates that the range of stakeholders with an interest in water resources of an irrigation system go far beyond the owners and cultivators of irrigated fields. As such, these groups are not only claimants on the ongoing management of water resource systems, but also need to be included in any considerations of transferring water from irrigation to other uses.

Does Supermarket Purchase Affect the Dietary Practices of Households? Some Empirical Evidence from Guatemala

Abstract: Very little is known about how changes in the retail environment affect consumers’ diet and health status, especially in developing countries. This article examines the impact of supermarket purchases on the dietary practices of households in Guatemala, using an instrumental variable method to take account of the potential endogeneity of the supermarket purchase variable. The results reveal that supermarket purchases increase the share of highly and partially processed foods at the expense of staple foods, and are also positively and significantly associated with individual Body Mass Index. Different policy moves should be envisaged towards ‘healthier’ diets.

Public–Private Partnerships in International Agricultural Research: An Analysis of Constraints

Abstract: Public–private partnerships are a potentially important means of conducting pro-poor agricultural research in many developing countries. Yet within the international agricultural research sector, there are few examples of successful collaboration that have contributed to food security, poverty reduction or agricultural development. This study hypothesizes that partnerships between public research agencies and private, multinational firms are constrained by fundamentally different incentive structures; prohibitive costs, both direct and indirect; mutually negative perceptions between the sectors; and high levels of competition and risk associated with valuable assets and resources. Based on a survey of key stakeholders and a review of the literature, findings suggest that the primary impediments to partnership are perceptions, competition and risk, while issues of costs and conflicting incentives are secondary. These findings suggest that investment in innovative organizational mechanisms and supportive public policies could facilitate more, and more successful, public–private partnerships in pro-poor agricultural research.

Global Cost of Land Degradation

Abstract: Land degradation—defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report as the long-term loss of ecosystems services—is a global problem, negatively affecting the livelihoods and food security of billions of people. Intensifying efforts, mobilizing more investments and strengthening the policy commitment for addressing land degradation at the global level needs to be supported by a careful evaluation of the costs and benefits of action versus costs of inaction against land degradation. Consistent with the definition of land degradation, we adopt the Total Economic Value (TEV) approach to determine the costs of land degradation and use remote sensing data and global statistical databases in our analysis. The results show that the annual costs of land degradation due to land use and land cover change (LUCC) are about US$231 billion per year or about 0.41 % of the global GDP of US$56.49 trillion in 2007. Contrary to past global land degradation assessment studies, land degradation is severe in both tropical and temperate countries. However, the losses from LUCC are especially high in Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 26 % of the total global costs of land degradation due to LUCC. However, the local tangible losses (mainly provisioning services) account only for 46 % of the total cost of land degradation and the rest of the cost is due to the losses of ecosystem services (ES) accruable largely to beneficiaries other than the local land users. These external ES losses include carbon sequestration, biodiversity, genetic information and cultural services. This implies that the global community bears the largest cost of land degradation, which suggests that efforts to address land degradation should be done bearing in mind that the global community, as a whole, incurs larger losses than the local communities experiencing land degradation. The cost of soil fertility mining due to using land degrading management practices on maize, rice and wheat is estimated to be about US$15 billion per year or 0.07 % of the global GDP. Though these results are based on a crop simulation approach that underestimates the impact of land degradation and covers only three crops, they reveal the high cost of land degradation for the production of the major food crops of the world. Our simulations also show that returns to investment in action against land degradation are twice larger than the cost of inaction in the first six years alone. Moreover, when one takes a 30-year planning horizon, the returns are five dollars per each dollar invested in action against land degradation. The opportunity cost accounts for the largest share of the cost of action against land degradation. This explains why land users, often basing their decisions in very short-time horizons, could degrade their lands even when they are aware of bigger longer-term losses that are incurred in the process.