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.

Investing in African Agriculture to Halve Poverty by 2015

Abstract: This paper proposes a simple methodology to estimate the agricultural spending that will be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015 (MDG1) in 30 sub-Saharan African countries. This method uses growth-poverty and growth-expenditure elasticities to estimate the financial resources required to meet the MDG1, considering both the direct and indirect impacts of agricultural spending on poverty reduction. The paper attempts to address a key knowledge gap by improving estimation of MDG costs at both the regional and country levels.

Factors Affecting Performance of Agricultural Extension: Evidence from Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract: Purpose: As part of the institutional reforms and agricultural restructuring in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this paper provides an assessment of the performance of the agricultural extension system as well as factors explaining it.Method: This paper involves key informants’ interviews and surveys of 107 extension organizations and 162 extension agents in randomly selected 156 villages, analyzed using qualitative and logistic regression methods.Findings and Practical Implications: Results show that despite having one of the highest extension agent-to-farmer ratio and a pluralistic extension system, DRC fails to deliver knowledge and technologies to rural areas due to lack of coordination, no unified and clear policy and mandate, lack of funding, aging and low competencies of agents, and lack of mobility and interactions of agents with key actors. This paper complements findings by other studies that number of agents is not a sufficient indication of performance, but an effective system ...

Nutrition Transition and the Structure of Global Food Demand

Abstract: Estimating future demand for food is a critical aspect of global food security analyses. The process linking dietary changes to wealth is known as the nutrition transition and presents well-identified features that help to predict consumption changes in poor countries. This study proposes to represent the nutrition transition with a nonhomothetic, flexible-in-income, demand system, known as the Modified Implicitly Directly Additive Demand System (MAIDADS). The resulting model is transparent and estimated statistically based on cross-sectional information from FAOSTAT. It captures the main features of the nutrition transition: rise in demand for calories associated with income growth; diversification of diets away from starchy staples; and a large increase in caloric demand for animal-based products, fats, and sweeteners. The estimated model is used to project food demand between 2010 and 2050 based on a set of plausible futures (trend projections and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios). The main results of these projections are as follows: (1) global food demand will increase by 46%, less than half the growth in the previous four decades; (2) this growth will be attributable mainly to lower-middle-income and low-income countries; (3) the structure of global food demand will change over the period, with a 95% increase in demand for animal-based calories and a much smaller 18% increase in demand for starchy staples; and (4) the analysis of a range of population and income projections reveals important uncertainties: depending on the scenario, the projected increases in demand for animal-based and vegetal-based calories range from 78 to 109% and from 20 to 42%, respectively.