Integrated Food Policy Research Program (IFPRP)

Ensuring inclusiveness, sustainability, and efficiency of food system transformation in the ASEAN and BIMSTEC countries “ATMI-II”

The project “Ensuring Inclusiveness, Sustainability, and Efficiency of Food System Transformation in the ASEAN and BIMSTEC Countries - (ATMI-II)” responds to the rapid transformation of agri-food systems across selected Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) member states. These countries face significant development challenges, including persistent rural poverty, inequality across socio-economic groups, and high vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. As agricultural markets become more integrated regionally and globally, concerns have intensified regarding inclusiveness, particularly the participation of smallholder farmers, women, and youth in value chains, markets, and policy processes.

Pre- and postharvest losses and their correlates in the millet value chain in Nigeria

Food losses continue to constrain food security, rural incomes, and agrifood system efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, yet comprehensive micro-level evidence across entire value chains remains scarce. This study provides a detailed assessment of pre- and postharvest losses along the millet value chain in northwestern Nigeria, focusing on producers, aggregators, and processors in Sokoto and Zamfara states—two major millet-producing regions. Millet is a nutritionally rich and climate-resilient staple that plays a critical role in Nigeria, making loss reduction in this value chain particularly important for food system resilience.

The analysis draws on a purposefully designed baseline survey conducted in 2024, covering 595 millet producers and downstream value chain actors. The study applies a novel attribute-based loss measurement methodology that captures both quantitative losses (physical grain loss) and qualitative losses (quality degradation and associated price penalties), allowing estimation of losses in both volume and value terms across multiple nodes of the value chain. In addition to descriptive loss accounting, econometric models are employed to identify factors correlated with the incidence/likelihood and intensity of preharvest and postharvest losses at the producer level.

The results show that millet losses are widespread and concentrated at early stages of the value chain. Nearly all producers experience losses, with preharvest and on-farm postharvest stages accounting for the largest share. Total losses along the value chain average about 9 percent of total volume of production and 6 percent of total value of production. These estimates are comparable to the findings by the African Postharvest Losses Information System of approximately 9 percent millet losses in postharvest production activities in Nigeria. Producer-level losses dominate overall losses, although processors also incur substantial losses during storage, handling, and transportation. Spillage, pest infestation, moisture exposure, and inadequate handling practices are the most frequently reported causes of postharvest losses among downstream actors, although losses by aggregators are generally low.

Loss patterns vary systematically across space and demographic groups. Producers in Zamfara experience significantly higher losses than those in Sokoto, with preharvest losses playing a more prominent role. Youth and male producers incur higher total losses than mature producers, while gender differences are also observed in the composition and timing of losses across production stages. These patterns underscore the importance of spatially targeted and demographically sensitive loss-reduction strategies.

Econometric results highlight the central role of technology adoption, asset ownership, and management practices in loss reduction. Higher education levels, greater asset ownership, and larger farm size are associated with lower loss intensity, while preharvest shocks significantly exacerbate postharvest losses. The use of improved transportation, winnowing, and storage technologies substantially reduces postharvest loss intensity, whereas higher rainfall and temperature during postharvest periods increase losses.

Overall, the study demonstrates that food losses in Nigeria’s millet value chain are systemic but largely preventable. Effective loss reduction requires integrated, value chain–oriented interventions that combine improved production and postharvest technologies, climate adaptation measures, infrastructure investment, and targeted support for youth and smallholders. By providing rigorous micro-level evidence across multiple value chain nodes, the study strengthens the empirical foundation for food loss reduction policies and agrifood system transformation in Nigeria.

Synopsis: Evolution of and opportunities for the fresh produce value chain in PNG

Enhancing the fresh produce value chain in PNG will contribute to wider development goals including rural economic growth, food and nutrition security and rural employment diversification. An important component of strengthening agriculture value chains in PNG will be increasing crop productivity and quality. However, equally important is strengthening agricultural markets and rural – urban linkages. Recognizing the importance of supporting greater domestic fresh produce marketing, the PNG government (GoPNG) continues to promote investments that link farmers to markets, primarily through the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) (DAL 2023).

A principal mechanism for promoting rural economic growth and strengthening agriculture value chains involves enabling the more commercially oriented smallholder farming households to significantly increase their productivity through greater use of modern farming inputs over an increasing share of local arable land (Benny et al., 2022). As the income of more productive farm households grows, their demand for locally produced goods and services increases. These goods and services are generally labor-intensive, require limited capital in their production, and are typically not marketed outside of the local community. This includes construction and associated services; transport and infrastructure services; education, health, and other social services; food and beverage processing; and the like, which facilitate greater (and often higher value) labor diversification and specialization within the rural economy.

Fresh produce value chains remain understudied in many low- and middle-income countries, despite their demonstrated role in promoting rural economic growth, improved welfare, and dietary diversity. This lack of information and analysis is particularly acute in Papua New Guinea (PNG), whereby dated or limited evidence exists on agriculture production and expansion, fresh produce trade flows, price formation and price variation over time, throughout seasons, and across regions. Understanding these production and market dynamics is essential for supporting value chain actors in developing profitable and sustainable systems that provide farmers with the incentives they need to supply fresh produce to trustworthy and transparent markets.

This synopsis draws upon 2 detailed studies (Schmidt et al., 2025; and Minten et al., 2025) that aim to inform opportunities for investment in the fresh produce value chain by: 1) analyzing remote sensing data to estimate agricultural expansion in horticulture production areas of the PNG highlands; 2) evaluating unique market flow and fresh produce price data collected over a 15-year period by FPDA; and 3) estimating the price margins of each value chain actor in the fresh produce value chain through in-depth stakeholder interviews.

The structure of this synopsis report is as follows. Section 2 provides an analysis of agriculture expansion over time and fresh produce market flows from the Highlands fresh produce corridor. Section 3 examines price trends and marketing margins across 6 key markets in diverse locations of the country. Section 4 reports on in-depth stakeholder interviews to unpackage costs along the value chain from farmgate to retailer. Section 5 concludes with key findings and implications.

Market channel and other drivers of tomato farmer production and handling practices in Nigeria

Non-contract farming arrangements remain the dominant marketing option for poor, often food-insecure smallholder farmers in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet such farming arrangements are less studied than contract farming. Using a case study of 1,673 Nigerian tomato farmers, this study examined whether selling to midstream actors such as wholesalers and aggregators (via informal market arrangements) supports farmers’ adoption of good agricultural practices. We first explored the drivers of farmer sales to different market channels using a multinomial logit model. Then, using multivariate probit analysis, we identified factors associated with the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP) and good handling practices (GHP) with particular attention to a farmers’ market channel. We found that larger smallholder farmers using modern irrigation are more likely to sell to midstream actors. We also found that selling to wholesalers and aggregators is an important determinant of farmers’ adoption of GAP and GHP, and this holds even for the smallest smallholder farmers. These results confirm that even where informal trading arrangements dominate (as is common in most LMICs), value chain actors in the midstream of food supply chains can support farmer adoption of GAP and GHP. These relationships have important implications for food security via enhancing the livelihoods of smallholder producers and improving the availability and safety of fresh produce for consumers, and thus should be leveraged in the design and implementation of efforts to expand farmer adoption of GAP and GHP.

The Urban Food Environments and Diets (UFED) Tool

How do urban food environments shape diets and nutritional status? The UFED tool offers guidance on suggested methods, indicators, and practical tips for assessing diets and food environments in urban and peri-urban settings, many of which may also be relevant for rural contexts.

Myanmar monthly food price report – February 2026

Rice prices in February 2026 remained significantly lower year-on-year (down 13 percent), although they increased slightly month-on-month, indicating an early recovery following several months of decline driven by lower international prices and increased domestic supply. While easing pressure on consumers, these trends continue to raise concerns for paddy producers facing rising input costs.

Export crop prices strengthened this month, with pulses and maize increasing month-on-month supported by the revised foreign exchange policy and stronger international market demand.

Vegetable prices showed mixed year-on-year trends but increased month-on-month, partly driven by seasonal demand during the Tabaung festival period. Supply disruptions, including weather-related production impacts, also influenced price movements for key crops such as potato and chili.

Animal-sourced food prices continued to rise sharply year-on-year, led by mutton, chicken, and fish, reflecting supply constraints, disease outbreaks, and strong export demand.

The war in Iran has led to a partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than a quarter of the world’s oil exports and 20–30 percent of global fertilizer exports pass. These developments are especially concerning for Myanmar’s agrifood system, which depends heavily on fuel for transport, irrigation, mechanization, and processing. In addition, disruptions in fertilizer supply could adversely affect the upcoming monsoon season.

Cooling technologies and long-term efficiency improvement of horticulture market agents: Panel data evidence from a solar-powered cold storage intervention in Nigeria

Modern cooling technologies that use renewable energy sources have been increasingly recognized as a promising tool to address a multitude of challenges emerging in progressively complex food systems in developing countries. When provided as cold storage inside horticulture markets, cooling technologies can contribute to improved quality of products and strengthened vertical linkages. Knowledge gaps about the medium- to long-term impacts of these technologies in developing countries remain, especially in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA). This study partly fills this knowledge gap by revisiting the 2021 short-term impact evaluation study (Takeshima et al. 2023) to assess the medium- to longer term impacts of interventions in northeast Nigeria in which 7 small solar-powered cold storages were installed across 7 horticulture markets. Combinations of difference-in-difference and variants of propensity score-based methods suggest that using cold storage significantly increased horticulture sales volumes and revenues of market agents. Using cold storage also reduced the share of food loss and lengthened the products’ shelf-life while raising prices received by both market agents and farmers, which were associated with improved product quality, expanded value-adding activities by market agents, and increased use of advance payments. We find no evidence of negative spillover effects inside horticulture markets. Observed effects are driven by the technical improvements that raise the efficiency of the use of purchased raw commodities, enabled by cold storage, based on modified efficiency analyses. At the same time, the efficiency of cold storage use remains low despite some improvement over time, and scopes exist to enhance this efficiency.

The state of food security and nutrition in Myanmar, 2021-2025: Findings from nine rounds of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey

Persistent Hunger: Extreme hunger continued to affect nearly 3.5 percent of households in late 2025. Poor Adult Diet Quality: Over a quarter of adults (27.1 percent) lack adequate dietary diversity. Women’s diet quality has worsened faster than men’s over the past three years. Deteriorating diets of young children: Over 36.5 percent of 6-23 months and 24.3 percent of 6-59 months old children are without an adequately diverse diet, significantly higher than in previous years. Multiple Factors Affecting Risk & Resilience: Low assets, conflict, and high food prices drive insecurity; remittances reduce food-related risks.

This working paper explores the state of food security and nutrition in Myanmar using nine rounds of nationally representative household panel data collected from December 2021 to October 2025. Overall, the state of food security and nutrition has deteriorated in Myanmar from 2021-2025.

Nearly 3.5 percent of households were in moderate to severe hunger in July-October 2025, with low asset households disproportionately affected. Households with a low Food Consumption Score increased from 9.4 percent in December 2021-February 2022 to 14.2 percent in August-November 2023 and remained high at 16.2 percent in July-October 2025.

Inadequate diet diversity among adults rose from 20.5 percent to 27.1 percent between December 2021-February 2022 and July-October 2025. Women saw a faster decline in diet quality during this time (8.7 percentage points increase in poor diet quality compared to 3.9 percentage points for men). Decreases in diet quality among adults were driven by lower consumption of animal sourced food.

In the latest round of survey, children with poor diet quality increased compared to previous rounds – currently in 2025, 36.5 percent of 6-23 months and 24.3 percent of 6-59 months children are without an adequately diverse diet compared to 30.7 percent and 21.3 percent, respectively, in 2024. Similarly, 42.9 percent of children aged 6-23 months in Myanmar do not meet the Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD), a composite indicator of meal frequency and dietary diversity, indicating widespread inadequacy in infant and young child feeding.

Regression analysis reveals low income and limited assets to be important risk factors for food security and adequate diet quality. Wage workers and low wage communities were particularly vulnerable. Rising food prices, conflict and physical insecurity also increase the likelihood of poor diet quality. Receiving remittances was a source of resilience; remittance-receiving households were less likely to experience hunger or poor dietary diversity at the household, adult, and child level.

To avert a full-blown nutrition crisis in Myanmar, effective multisectoral steps are required to protect nutritionally vulnerable populations. Expanded implementation of nutrition- and gender-sensitive social protection programs, including maternal and child cash transfers, particularly to vulnerable groups, is needed. Further, given the importance of remittances as an effective coping mechanism, supporting migration and the flow of remittances would help to improve the welfare of the Myanmar population.

Conceptualizing and measuring dimensions of tenure security: Gendered analysis from Malawi, Bangladesh, and Nepal

Women’s property rights and tenure security are recognized as critical for development policy and practice. Yet there is no consensus on how to conceptualize or measure these concepts. In this paper, we explore the relationships between perceived tenure security, as reported by survey respondents, with documentation and the bundle of rights that are often used to define property ownership. We use data from the pilot of the Women’s Empowerment Metrics for National Statistics (WEMNS) in Malawi, Nepal, and Bangladesh on both agricultural land and housing. The land rights module was designed to match indicators being collected to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Similar questions were asked regarding the dwelling. Regression results find few associations between perceived tenure security and property rights (holding individual or sole land rights, having your name on a document, and holding rights to sell and bequeath). We thus use Sankey diagrams to visualize these relationships. In Malawi, two-thirds of those without documents, both men and women, are tenure secure. In Bangladesh, over half of the respondents are landless and thus do not have tenure security. Two-thirds of Bangladeshi women respondents in landed households report that they are tenure secure, in spite of not having their own names on the documents. In Nepal, we find a high level of both property ownership (90 percent) and tenure security (80 percent). The patterns differ across contexts and between land and housing. The results confirm that the documentation of rights and having sole or joint rights are important but should not be conflated with tenure security.

Crop diversification and nutritional resilience amid conflicts: Evidence from farmers in Myanmar

Resilient food and nutrition systems that support dietary diversity are central to improving welfare outcomes and fostering the formation of human capital, with lasting implications for socioeconomic development. Historically, while smallholders in developing countries have accessed food both from diversified farms or kitchen gardens, markets have increasingly become the more dominant source of diet diversity as agrifood systems continue their transformation. Yet little is known regarding how intensifying conflicts and social instability affect these linkages between agrifood systems and households’ dietary diversity. Addressing this knowledge gap is particularly relevant for countries like Myanmar, which is characterized not only by escalating conflicts in recent years but also by relatively lower levels of overall crop diversification and dietary diversity at the national level compared to many other countries in East and Southeast Asia. By using unique panel datasets from Myanmar that cover significant spatiotemporal variation in conflict intensity and addressing the potential endogeneity of crop diversification, we provide new evidence on the resilience of household dietary diversity in conflict-affected settings. We find that increased incidence of violent events at township levels (a proxy for conflict intensity) significantly lowers household dietary diversity during the post-monsoon season, particularly the diversity derived from purchased food items. These adverse effects are relatively more pronounced for healthier food items, such as pulses/legumes/nuts and vegetables/leaves. However, the negative impacts of conflicts on dietary diversity in the post-monsoon season are significantly mitigated by greater diversity in food crop production for farm households during the preceding monsoon season. Results are robust across different measurements of crop diversification and violent events. These findings suggest that in conflict-prone developing countries like Myanmar, household-level crop diversification remains an important strategy for farmers to safeguard household dietary diversity.

Building resilient farmer producer organizations: Driving inclusive and sustainable rural transformation through collective strength

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are increasingly recognized as engines of inclusive agricultural growth. By enabling small and marginal farmers to aggregate produce, access inputs, and improve bargaining power, FPOs hold the promise of transforming rural economies. Yet, many continue to struggle with weak governance structures, limited managerial capacity, and challenges in accessing markets and finance. To unlock their true potential, FPOs need systematic capacity-building.

Recognizing this, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment (DA&FE), Government of Odisha, in collaboration with IFPRI, organized state-level trainings to strengthen FPOs across the state. Over three days, 130 representatives, including board members, chief executive officers (CEOs), and staff from 38 FPOs covering all districts, participated in three batches. The training was designed not only to impart technical knowledge but also to create a platform for peer learning, reflection, and problem-solving. The overarching goal was clear: move FPOs from scheme-driven entities to self-sustaining, market-ready businesses.

The making of a non-parametric multi-shock index (MSI)

Households in low- and middle-income countries increasingly face overlapping economic, climatic, health, and conflict-related shocks that jointly erode welfare and food security. Yet many empirical and operational tools still measure shocks one at a time or aggregate them using ad hoc rules that assume equal severity and linear effects. This paper proposes a non-parametric multi-shock index (MSI) that summarizes household exposure to multiple shocks using an assumption-light, data-driven approach. The MSI construction proceeds in two steps: (i) shocks are empirically filtered based on their observed negative association with food security outcomes (anchored to the Food Consumption Score), and (ii) retained shocks are aggregated using alternative weighting schemes, including unweighted, population-weighted, and prevalence-weighted variants. We validate the MSI using multiple food security measures—Food Consumption Score (FCS), Reduced Coping Strategy Index (rCSI), Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), and Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS). An application using FAO’s Data in Emergencies (DIEM) household survey for Nigeria illustrates the approach and shows that cumulative exposure—especially systemic and compound exposure—is strongly associated with deteriorating food security outcomes. Among tested variants, the prevalence-weighted MSI provides the clearest discriminatory power and distributional sensitivity, supporting its use for targeting, monitoring, and shock-responsive programming (FAO, 2016; Maxwell et al., 2014; World Bank, 2018).

Evidence of the multifunctional performance of the Akole Landscape in Maharashtra, India

This report presents evidence on the multifunctional performance of the Akole landscape in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India, located in the ecologically significant Western Ghats. Drawing on assessments conducted between 2022 and 2024, the study evaluates agronomic, economic, environmental, and social dimensions to understand landscape-level sustainability and resilience.

Akole, situated in the Sahyadri ranges, is predominantly inhabited by tribal and rural communities dependent on agriculture and forest resources. Despite its rich biodiversity and traditional knowledge systems, the landscape faces mounting pressures from soil erosion, declining water retention, deforestation, monocropping, excessive tillage, and high fertilizer use. Increasing climatic variability—marked by erratic rainfall, droughts, and pest outbreaks—further exacerbates vulnerability. Limited livelihood diversification, high poverty levels, and malnutrition intensify socio-economic risks, while critical data gaps persist, particularly in assessing human health and well-being.

The report identifies key bottlenecks and synthesizes available data to evaluate early outcomes of targeted nature-positive and agroecological interventions. It advocates a transition from production-centric agriculture to a Multifunctional Landscape approach that integrates diversified livelihoods, sustainable resource management, and equity. Such a shift is essential to enhance long-term resilience, ecological integrity, and economic sustainability under changing climatic conditions.

Barriers and opportunities for youth in northern Nigeria’s agrifood value chains: Findings from qualitative research

In Africa, the population of youth ages 15–35 is expected to exceed 100 million by 2030, underscoring the need for the inclusion of youth in the design of programs and policies that promote sustainable livelihoods (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2017). Moreover, half of the youth population will be young women, emphasizing the need for gender-sensitive approaches. While many rural African youth are involved in various nodes of agricultural value chains (AVCs), far fewer—particularly young women—have access to dignified and fulfilling work. Many of the barriers that youth face in fully participating in the agricultural sector are reinforced by gender norms. Addressing the barriers to dignified and fulfilling work can help transform AVCs to be more inclusive of youth and ensure both young women and young men have access to improved livelihood opportunities. Considering the great potential of African youth for inclusive growth, in 2018, the Mastercard Foundation launched its Young Africa Works Strategy in nine countries, including Nigeria. The objective of the strategy is to increase access to dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for African youth, particularly young women (Mastercard Foundation, 2025b; Wallace, Lindsay, 2020).

This report presents findings from a qualitative research study on the barriers and opportunities experienced by young women and young men who participate in key AVCs in northern Nigeria. This study is especially important given that many who reside in the region are somehow involved in agriculture and that youths’ livelihood experiences may be influenced by religious and gender norms, as well as the ongoing conflict. We investigate youth participation in key AVCs, their perceptions of dignified and fulfilling work, facilitators and constraints to their participation in AVCs, with an emphasis on gender norms, and their experiences with financial services.

To investigate these topics, we conducted semi-structured interviews (SSIs) and sex-segregated focus group discussions (FGDs) with young women and young men. We also interviewed non-youth adults (those ages 35 and older), including value chain actors, financial service providers, and frontline program staff using key informant interviews (KIIs), and conducted community profiles (group interviews with community leaders) to gain a holistic perspective on the experiences of youth in AVCs. While our study emphasizes the opportunities and challenges faced by youth, it relies on perspectives from a diverse range of youth and non-youth adults to provide comprehensive insights into the context in which youth live and work. All participants were recruited by liaising with local community leaders, except for program staff, who were recruited with support from project partners, and financial service providers, who were recruited by field team members scouting banks in the study area.

The qualitative methods used for this study do not allow for generalizable, population-level results; rather, they provide rich insights into the “how” and “why” behind various experiences, perspectives, and opinions underpinning youths’ livelihood opportunities. In other words, the findings presented in this report offer insights into the processes that underlie youths’ experiences with dignified and fulfilling work, particularly regarding their participation in AVCs.

Unsurprisingly, young women and young men participate in processing and marketing in different ways, which is often reinforced by gender and religious norms. For instance, young women are discouraged from working outside the home and are largely confined to home-based processing, where they can be monitored and remain separated from unrelated men. Such concerns may limit the ability of young women to participate in AVCs in more public roles, such as selling goods in the town market. Moreover, young women’s family members, either her husband or parents, are often responsible for enforcing these norms. Women of all ages are responsible for housework and childcare, which limits them from pursuing income-generating activities. However, some young women are able to circumvent these restrictive norms. Non-Muslim women are not subject to the same religious gender norms, internally displaced young women are able to engage in a wider range of economic activities, some young women violate gender norms despite criticism, and others participate in AVC activities through others, such as by using hired labor.

Young men may also participate in some aspects of processing, particularly when it involves mechanization, as using equipment is considered a man’s domain. As for marketing, young men predominantly sell raw agricultural products in bulk. Young women typically purchase raw goods from men and process them into various food products for home-based sale.

Importantly, the findings presented in this report inform potential solutions to mitigate the constraints faced by youth participating in AVCs, including but not limited to the specific constraints imposed by gender norms. We discuss gender-transformative approaches, such as household and community dialogues, to challenge norms that restrict the ability of young women to pursue livelihood opportunities. We also highlight several promising approaches that can be paired with gender-transformative approaches. The development of systematized cottage industries may facilitate young women’s entrance into AVCs in a gender-responsive way (meaning in a way that works with existing gender norms). Stronger mentorship programs and financial services that are responsive to youth needs may also bolster young women’s and men’s participation in AVCs in northern Nigeria.

Ghana: Cost effective options for inclusive and sustainable development

In this policy brief, we present findings of a systematic evaluation and ranking of investment options for Ghana’s agrifood system based on their cost-effectiveness in achieving multiple development outcomes, including agrifood gross domestic product (GDP) growth, agrifood job creation, poverty reduction, declining undernourishment, and lowering diet deprivation. Additionally, the study assesses their environmental footprints, focusing on water consumption, land use, and emissions. In Ghana, extension in agronomy and post-harvest food loss reduction are the most cost-effective ways to improve social outcomes, including notably reducing poverty and undernourishment levels. Meanwhile, advisory services in livestock and support to small and medium enterprise (SME) processors are highly ranked in accelerating agrifood GDP and employment. Moreover, extension services for agronomy and climate, and investments in mechanization are also highly ranked. However, many of these cost-effective investments come with relatively high environmental footprints, which highlights potential tradeoffs. The study further reveals shifts in the cost-effectiveness ranking of investment options over time and moderately so in the presence of extreme production shocks.

The Cash Transfer & Intimate Partner Violence Research Collaborative: Expertise, impact, and future directions

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) has severe long-term consequences for women’s health and well-being, imposes significant economic costs through lost productivity, and has intergenerational impacts on children. Although evidence exists on effective approaches to reduce VAWG, many interventions are resource-intensive and difficult to scale. Stakeholders increasingly recognize that accelerated progress requires embedding VAWG prevention and response approaches within diverse sectors, including in existing systems and large-scale sectoral programming. Sectors focused on reducing poverty and economic insecurity offer a particularly high-potential but underleveraged opportunity. Despite their extensive reach and influence over the structural drivers of VAWG, these sectors have not traditionally focused on VAWG reduction. The field lacks actionable evidence on how to leverage these large-scale systems to reduce VAWG in ways that governments and other key actors can adopt, finance, and sustain, including approaches that reach women and girls in fragile and climate-vulnerable settings.

Does Malawi's exchange rate regime keep prices low? Evidence and policy implications

The current exchange rate regime in Malawi is untenable. It results in multiple effective parallel rates, which impose significant costs on the economy and the daily lives of citizens. A key concern underpinning the existence of the regime is that its removal would trigger rampant inflation and worsen livelihoods. However, the widespread importation of both food and nonfood products at informal exchange rates means that the average citizen derives little real benefit from the maintenance of the official rate. After two major fuel price hikes in recent months, pump prices have nearly converged with the cost that would prevail at market-determined exchange rates.

Drawing on a combination of price multiplier and food demand simulations, this policy note shows that an exchange rate regime rationalization – through devaluing the official exchange rate to eliminate the informal premium and allowing the Malawi kwacha to trade at market-clearing levels – would not lead to runaway inflation or harm household welfare. Recent fuel price increases – in October 2025 and January this year – have pre-emptively absorbed much of the inflationary impact that would have been associated with exchange rate reform.

Our analysis documents the direct, short-run effects of exchange rate unification on domestic prices and finds them to be relatively modest. Longer-term economic growth and sustained price stability will hinge on the effective execution of a coherent set of complementary reforms. Exchange rate unification is a necessary component of this package, but it is not sufficient. Implemented in isolation or treated as a one-off devaluation followed by business as usual, it will bring little relief. It must be accompanied by sound fiscal and monetary policy and sustained export growth to restore macroeconomic stability. We do not discuss the trade-offs inherent to these accompanying measures, as they have been addressed at length in AfDB et al. (2025) and Engel et al. (2025).

Critically, there must be a credible and durable switch toward a more flexible and transparent exchange rate regime. It will take time for exports and growth to pick up after a devaluation, and whether they do will depend on economic actors believing that macroeconomic conditions will remain stable over the lifetime of their investments. It will require careful preparation to get the cocktail right. Politically, the current administration might just have one shot at this: failure will make future reform attempts much harder.

Myanmar monthly food price report – January 2026

In January 2026, rice prices declined sharply year-on-year and stabilized month-on-month after several months of continuous decline, driven largely by lower international prices and monsoon-season supply. While these trends have eased pressure on consumers, they raise concerns for paddy producers facing rising input costs. Pulse markets showed mixed dynamics. Black gram, chickpea, and pigeon pea remained below last year’s levels reflecting continued weak demand from India, though modest month-on-month gains were observed following weather-related production concerns. Green gram prices remained higher year-on-year but softened slightly month-on-month due to delayed winter planting. Maize prices stabilized month-on-month, supported by improved export expectations and regional feed demand. Vegetable prices were generally lower year-on-year, while animal-sourced foods continued to record substantial year-on-year increases, particularly mutton and fish, reflecting supply constraints and export demand. Overall, food markets remain influenced by international price movements, export policy adjustments, and ongoing regional disruptions.

Agricultural trade in Africa: Current trends and challenges

Agricultural trade can play a central role in meeting people's food needs, both by increasing available supply and by boosting stakeholders' incomes, given that 60% of the labor force works in this sector (Bonuedi et al., 2020; Wonyra and Gnedeka 2023). However, an analysis of African agricultural trade performance over the past twenty years highlights some key issues to watch. First, African agricultural trade is the lowest in the world, not helped by high costs of trading and non-tariff measures. Second, a trade deficit that has been steadily widening since 2006 as Africa has become heavily dependent on imports of basic agricultural products such as cereals. The continent currently meets more than 40% of its cereal demand on world markets. This deficit in African agricultural trade is fueled by low productivity, linked to declining yields and a lack of sufficient investment in production, storage, processing, and marketing infrastructure, and rapid population growth and urbanization in Africa which has increased demand for imported food. Third, over the past two decades, the structure of African agricultural exports has remained largely undiversified, with unprocessed cash crops continuing to be the dominant export commodity. To better understand the dynamics of agricultural trade in Africa, this brief analyzes its performance, over the 2003-2023 period, by highlighting the most dynamic countries and regional economic communities, the most exported and imported products, and the continent's revealed comparative advantages.

Urban Food Environments and Diets (UFED) online tool: Urban considerations

Specific considerations for planning and conducting assessments in urban contexts are detailed in this Urban Considerations resource, a supplement to other guidance available through the Urban Food Environments and Diets (UFED) web tool. The document covers topics such as sampling of urban communities, participatory mapping of food environments, data collection in slums and informal settlements, and identification and classification of ultra-processed foods and food consumed away from home. The Urban Considerations resource also provides a set of recommendations for improving linkages between dietary and food environment assessments, starting at the planning and design stages.

Women’s voice and agency in “organized” vegetable clusters: The Agriculture Production Cluster (APC) program in Odisha, India

A key policy tool for inclusive agrifood system transformation has been organizing women farmers into collectives. This is especially important for diversifying production into high-value sectors such as horticulture and livestock. Empirical evidence from around the world shows that some of these efforts can be transformative, but the impact is mixed and can involve tradeoffs (Malhotra et al. 2024; Quisumbing et al. 2021; Twyman et al. 2022). The extent to which programmatic interventions can enable inclusive and sustainable value chain participation thus depends on specific design principles. These includes the selection of commodities, bundling of interventions that tackle multiple constraints simultaneously, the presence of committed staff and champions for effective implementation, and a pathway to institutionalize these interventions (Narayanan et al. 2024, for example). In contrast to clusters that develop spontaneously, where incentives and supportive institutions may be present already and may have spawned these clusters to start with, the viability of organized clusters depends crucially on these inputs.

In this note, we bring together qualitative and quantitative data from a larger research effort (See Project Note 1) to spotlight the experiences of women farmers in organized clusters in the Indian state of Odisha. We focus on the Agriculture Production Cluster Program (APC). The goals of our research are to understand how organized clusters can foster and support diversification into vegetable cultivation. A second goal is to understand women’s experience in vegetable production within these clusters. A third goal is to reflect on the broader design and implementation of the APC program and its sustainability in a context where many cluster interventions are known to implode or fade after the program ends (Belton et al. 2025; Narayanan et al. 2025).

Mindset or economics: What explains the dominance of maize in Malawi

Malawi’s policy ambitions increasingly emphasize the need for greater crop and diet diversity. De-spite these stated goals, the country’s food system continues to revolve around maize, both in pro-duction and consumption. This brief discusses the economic imperatives that drive low-income, land-constrained Malawians to prioritize maize. Only by addressing these underlying incentives can policy effectively reduce maize dominance and support the diversification agenda it seeks to advance.

Does commercial small-scale aquaculture drive inclusive agricultural transformation in Odisha?

This mixed methods analysis of the status of small-scale aquaculture in Odisha and its potential to induce inclusive agricultural transformation yields the following key findings:

Most of Odisha’s population eat fish, but widely observed religious customs limit fish consumption to three days per week for most people. This means that aggregate demand for fish is about 60 percent lower than it might be in a fish-eating state with a similar population and no dietary restrictions, resulting in low derived demand for aquaculture development to serve local markets.

Odisha faces a “second mover” disadvantage in farming fish. Most of the farmed fish in Odisha’s markets is ‘imported’ from neighboring Andhra Pradesh, which has a long-established, highly productive medium- and large-scale commercial freshwater aquaculture sector that can outcompete farms in Odisha on price, even after accounting for transport costs.

Aquaculture growth in Odisha is concentrated along the coast, in capital-intensive shrimp farming clusters linked to global export markets. Intensive shrimp farming is difficult for small-scale producers to enter or participate in successfully and has been linked to a variety of exclusionary outcomes including soil salinization, and conflicts over land.

There is very little commercial small-scale freshwater aquaculture in Odisha. We found no evidence of major spontaneous clusters of inland aquaculture farms comparable to those found in neighboring West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, suggesting that aquaculture plays a limited role in driving agricultural transformation in Odisha at present.

Government schemes have doubled the number of community tanks and small private fishponds in some areas of Odisha over the past decade, but the spatial pattern of development atomized, and fish farming is mainly oriented toward subsistence production. Only 0.5 percent of farm households in six surveyed districts had a fishpond.

Small-scale inland aquaculture in Odisha makes localized contributions to food and nutrition security. Households in rural areas with more ponds are more likely to have eaten fish recently. This is valuable for those households who benefit directly.

Climate stress poses significant and growing challenges to aquaculture in Odisha’s semi-arid and cyclone-prone environment. These challenges are likely to intensify over time.

How are the production practices of vegetable farmers in Odisha transforming?

Agricultural transformation and smallholder commercialization are accompanied and driven by deepening integration of farmers into input markets and associated technological change. This project note examines two related questions: (1) How do households enter commercial vegetable cultivation? (2) How have technologies used to produce vegetables changed over time? The following key findings stand out:

Vegetable farming in Odisha is a long-standing activity. Most farmers entered vegetable cultivation over 20 years ago, with expansion accelerating 20–30 years back as markets deepened. Fewer than one in five respondents are first-generation vegetable farmers.

Entry into vegetable farming is primarily self-financed. Over 80% of farmers required startup capital to purchase inputs or make plot modifications such as land levelling. These investments were funded mainly through agricultural earnings, migration income, or non-farm earnings. Self-help groups are also an important source of finance for these investments.

Subsistence coexists with commercialization. Most farmers were partly motivated to start producing vegetables for home consumption, but virtually all sell some of what they produce. Marketed surpluses of vegetables have risen gradually, to reach over 70% by 2025, without displacing household self-provisioning, and own production accounts for around half of farmers’ vegetable consumption.

Crop portfolios are both concentrated and diverse. Production is dominated by a small set of “commodity vegetables” (most importantly tomato and brinjal), alongside a wide array of niche crops grown by smaller numbers of farmers.

Recent contraction in crop diversity and off-season production signals rising climate stress. The share of household growing vegetables in multiple seasons, and the number of crops produced per farm has fallen slightly, consistent with increasing climate stress and perhaps reflecting competitive pressures from out of state vegetable producers.

Adoption of productivity enhancing agricultural technologies is at a transitional stage. Hybrid vegetable seed, inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanized land preparation are widely adopted, but adoption of more advanced technologies that could give rise to greater commoditization (e.g. seed trays, seedlings purchased from nurseries, plastic mulch, drip irrigation, drones) remains low. Adoption of environmentally friendly inputs such as vermicompost, organic pesticides, and insect traps is limited.

Technology adoption is shaped by clustering and scale. Uptake of inputs, mechanization, and post-harvest handling tends to be greater in areas with high concentrations of vegetable production and among larger farms, reflecting agglomeration effects and access to service markets.

Expansion of irrigation access has been a critical catalyst for smallholder vegetable commercialization. The number of irrigated parcels of land operated by surveyed households has grown 74 percent since 1980, with irrigation accelerating sharply after 2010. Improving access to irrigation post-2010 has spurred entry into vegetable cultivation and simultaneous adoption of a complementary bundle of productivity enhancing technologies.

Vegetable cultivation relies heavily on private investments in irrigation, particularly open wells and borewells. Government irrigation schemes have been targeted primarily toward rice. Although more than half of irrigated parcels of land are served by government irrigation and the number of parcels with access to government irrigation has grown 35 percent in the past 15 years, the expansion of private irrigation provision has been almost twice as fast, growing 67 percent in the same period.

Small-scale commercial vegetable farming in Odisha: Who is involved, how is it changing, and how inclusive is it?

The research project “Tracking commercial small-scale producers for inclusive agricultural transformation” (INCATA) studied the relationships between commercial small-scale producers (farmers) and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), to understand whether and how these relationships could contribute to inclusive agricultural transformation.

Risk aversion and credit access: Solving financial exclusion through contract innovation

Credit market failures may reflect voluntary withdrawal by risk-averse borrowers in addition to supply-side constraints. We conduct a randomized trial with 1,517 Bangladeshi households, offering cattle financing through conventional loans or profit-sharing contracts that spread risk between the farmer and the financial partner. Overall, interest in and take-up of the profit-sharing contracts were modestly higher than the conventional loans. However, conventional loan take-up was much lower among risk-averse farmers, and profit-sharing eliminated the take-up gap between risk-averse and non-risk-averse farmers. We find that it is male risk preferences that are associated with these decisions even when contracts explicitly target women. Livestock investment increases under both contracts with no evidence of moral hazard under profit-sharing.

Changes in work participation across genders in rural India: Evidence from 2019 and 2024 time use surveys

This study examines gendered patterns of time use in rural India using nationally representative time use surveys from 2019 and 2024, capturing shifts in labor force participation amid significant socioeconomic changes, including the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis reveals a notable rise in rural women’s labor force participation—from 32 percent to 35.9 percent in agriculture—with a 38 percent increase in their paid agricultural work time. However, this progress coexists alongside entrenched gender disparities in unpaid domestic work, where women continue to spend nearly five hours daily, limiting their engagement in nonagricultural employment, which remains male-dominated and stagnant for women. Using multivariate regression and Gelbach decomposition, the study identifies gender, landholding, education, income, and caste as significant determinants of time allocation. Yet, much of the increase in women’s work time is driven by unobserved factors, likely linked to post-pandemic livelihood adjustments and structural constraints. The findings underscore that recent gains in women’s participation reflect genuine shifts rather than statistical artefacts but caution that without addressing time poverty, gender norms, and access to diversified livelihoods, these gains may not translate into sustainable empowerment. The paper calls for integrated policy measures, including gender-responsive agricultural support, public care infrastructure, skill development, and behavioral interventions to rebalance domestic responsibilities and facilitate women’s transition to higher productivity sectors.

Improving fruit and vegetable intake and production in Sri Lanka: An evaluation of the FRESH end-to-end approach

Inadequate diets are a major contributor to malnutrition and the leading risk factor for morbidity and mortality worldwide. Low fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake contributes significantly to these burdens.

F&Vs are essential sources of micronutrients, and their production has a lower environmental footprint compared to other nutrient-dense foods, making them critical for both health and sustainability. Despite these well-documented benefits, global F&V intake remains below the recommended 400 grams (about 5 servings) per person per day. This is particularly true in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where less than 20% of adults meet this target. This is likely due to a complex interplay of factors including availability, affordability, accessibility, and other context-specific barriers.

Narrowing F&V intake gaps requires a nuanced understanding of the interconnected factors influencing their consumption. The approach must be comprehensive and encompass addressing factors across the food system.

Generating high-quality, context-specific evidence on these factors is essential to designing effective strategies that enhance F&V desirability, affordability, accessibility, and availability, ultimately supporting healthier, more sustainable diets.

The potential impact of wheat stem rust on global agricultural supply, demand, and food security, considering market interactions

Wheat stem rust, a fungal disease that can be highly devastating under the right environmental conditions, was reduced to non-economically damaging levels during the Green Revolution. However, it has reemerged as a global threat to wheat production due to the appearance of new virulent strains in Uganda in 1999 that have spread steadily to other geographic areas. Wheat experts warn that the disease could pose a catastrophic threat to the global wheat supply if not monitored. Considering the importance of wheat as a principal source of calories, nutrients, and farm income throughout the world, assessments of the potential impacts of the disease are urgently required in order to formulate an appropriate response. Published assessments so far vary widely in method and results, and generally focus on wheat production losses alone, without considering how markets may offset or aggravate impacts (spillover effects). Here we take an integrated assessment approach and examine a set of “what-if” scenarios to account for direct and indirect economic and food security impacts of wheat stem rust in various world regions over the years 2026–2050. The severity and frequency of epidemics is introduced into the modeling framework based on a survey of international wheat experts. The results suggest that global market incentives may offset the worst impacts of wheat stem rust in most affected areas via international trade. However, the market mechanism simultaneously precipitates considerable food insecurity in areas far from any epidemic, as farms in these areas reallocate resources from the domestic cereal market to the wheat export market, in response to price signals.

Assessment of potato tuber quality in Kenya: Baseline quality assessment survey report

Potato is the second most important staple crop in Kenya after maize, supporting its food security and providing livelihoods for millions in the value chain, including over 800,000 smallholder farmers. However, fragmented marketing systems, inadequate post-harvest infrastructure, and limited access to quality inputs constrain the performance of the sector and result in severe post-harvest losses. This qualitative study provides empirical analysis on potato tuber quality among 233 farmers in Nakuru and Nyandarua counties, and among traders six different main markets in Kenya. Our findings establish a baseline for potato quality at the farm-level and in major markets, tracking individual shipments to measure degradation during transit due to lack of crucial market conditions and logistical bottlenecks. Our main results reveal some important elements that need to be addressed. Overall, potato quality is compromised at the farm gate, but this initial damage is dramatically amplified post-harvest, with skin abrasions more than doubling and rotting increasing threefold as produce moves along the value chain. Critically, these losses are compounded by limited quality-based sorting and the inadequate use of storage infrastructure, with negligible adoption of cold storage. The study also demonstrates that local/traditional handling practices and poor infrastructure quality are bigger drivers of loss than transport distance. Our research concludes that most economic losses could be addressed, being the direct result of identifiable failures in infrastructure, handling, access to information, and quality governance throughout the value chain. Most aspects of which can be mitigated with digital tools. Indeed, digital tools can enhance farmer-buyer linkages, promote digital education and advisory services -also through collaboration with Farmer Service Centers, encourage cold storage via digital incentives. These recommendations position digital tools as a catalyst for transforming the potato value chain, both directly and indirectly mitigating post-harvest losses while boosting resilience and incomes.

Using small-object detection to track solar irrigation scaling: Opportunities and limitations

In this study, we pilot a workflow in Fayoum, Egypt, using freely available high-resolution imagery and an iteratively expanded, custom-labeled dataset, to explore whether small-object detection can feasibly track solar-powered irrigation adoption. If feasible, this approach can provide a low-cost, scalable foundation for evidence-based policy. Beyond mapping adoption, the method also has potential to link solar irrigation detection to environmental and agricultural outcomes, such as vegetation dynamics, cropping intensity, or water use efficiency.

Empowerment unveiled: Gender dynamics and the impact of nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions among ethnic minority groups in northern Vietnam

Gender equality and women's empowerment are key global agendas, yet women often face marginalization compared to men. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions (NSAs) often aim to benefit women but their impacts on women's empowerment remain unclear. This study focuses on: 1) assessing the empowerment levels of women and men from three ethnic minorities in rural northern Vietnam (Thai, H'Mong and Dao) with the Project-level women's empowerment in agriculture index (Pro-WEAI); 2) examining the potential of NSA to improve women's empowerment during COVID-19 pandemic; and 3) applying an intersectional lens by analyzing how empowerment and treatment effects vary by ethnic subgroups. We conducted a Randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving around 600 rural households from 36 clusters that were randomly assigned to one of the following three treatment arms: receiving agriculture and nutrition training; receiving seed provision on top of the training; and a control group. We found that both men and women experienced disempowerment, due to ethnicity and systemic ethnical marginalization. While no significant gender discrimination in resource access was found, women faced limited mobility, overburdened workload and diminished agencies. Empowerment experiences varied across ethnicities. The NSAs improved women's mobility and group membership, yet carried different implications across ethnicities, potentially due to the interaction between the intervention, initial contextual conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, NSAs alone cannot achieve structural empowerment. Meaningful and lasting empowerment requires integrated approaches that address interconnected social, political, and cultural factors.

Using best-worst scaling to inform agroecological interventions in Western Kenya

Both the demand for food and the environmental impacts of food production are estimated to significantly increase by 2050. Agroecological interventions have proven effective in facilitating the transition from current food production systems to more sustainable ones. These interventions can not only ensure more equitable food and nutritional security but also address poverty and reduce environmental impacts. As such, agroecological interventions can generate both private and public ecosystem services. Farmers play a key role in how food is produced, as the practices they use are linked with their preferences and expertise, as well as the constraints they face. Understanding farmers’ preferences for the adoption of different agroecological practices and their perceptions of the associated costs and benefits is critical to informing policies that can effectively support farmers in transitioning to more sustainable practices, including those that contribute to the generation of ecosystem services highly valued by broader society. To assess such preferences, we conducted a survey among farmers in Western Kenya which included a best-worst scaling experiment augmented by qualitative questions about the reasons for farmers’ views about the importance of the benefits arising from agroecological practices. Results show that farmers have strong preferences for adopting agroecological practices that generate private goods and are directly related to increasing productivity and food security, including improving health of household members. These may also include practices that have some public good elements as well, such as increasing agrobiodiversity. However, practices that generate broader public good benefits, including improved forest quality/coverage, reduced off-farm environmental impacts, greater community-level resilience to shocks, and improved landscape and wildlife management, were less important to farmers. Such findings can be used to inform policies that support farmer adoption of agroecological interventions best suited to different farming communities, as well as indicating the need for additional types of market-based incentives, such as through Payments for Ecosystem Service mechanisms.

Tracing the economic impacts of the 2025 US tariff increases and evaluating possible responses: An analysis for Papua New Guinea

Restrictions on global trade can contribute to adverse economic outcomes in developing countries. Perverse outcomes include reduced export opportunities and higher input costs for essential goods. Policymakers in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as in other developing countries across the world, have therefore been concerned about global trade uncertainty as geopolitical tensions and protectionist policies have escalated throughout 2025. In April 2025, the United States (US) implemented a new tariff policy that included a baseline 10% tariff on goods from all countries, including PNG, along with higher "reciprocal tariffs" on countries with large trade deficits. The PNG government confirmed it would not retaliate but would instead pivot trade toward Asia-Pacific partners such as China, Indonesia, and Japan. In July 2025 PNG’s exports to the US were subjected to a 15% reciprocal tariff under an updated U.S. tariff schedule. In the ensuing months, some countries managed to finalize bilateral trade deals with US and reduced the tariff rates, while others are still under negotiations. According to the US trade policy 2025, the increment in reciprocal tariff on PNG is a result of the country’s failure to take sufficient steps to align with the US (The White House, 2025).

In this note, we provide a rapid assessment of the potential impacts of US tariff hikes on PNG’s economy, specifically on trade, GDP, and household income. We consider the two following scenarios:
Scenario 1—only US imposes additional tariffs (10 percent, 15 percent, and 30 percent), and PNG does not reciprocate.
Scenario 2—PNG reciprocates with equivalent tariffs on the commodity import from the US.

This note provides a rapid assessment of impact of US tariff policy on key macroeconomic indicators of PNG. This also helps derive quick policy insights into whether it would be advantageous for PNG to respond with higher tariffs or to accept the US’s higher tariff. Though US has imposed a 15% tariff on PNG’s export to US, due to uncertainty regarding the level of protectionism among the countries, this analysis also considers multiple tariff rates to understand the extent of economic losses in PNG due to relatively higher US tariff in the future.

Proceedings of the IFPRI-AERA policy dialogue on “Transforming Agri-Value Chains: Emerging Frontiers for Agribusiness”

Transforming agri-value chains has emerged as a central policy challenge for India as agriculture shifts from a primary production-oriented sector to one that is increasingly shaped by markets, value additions and consumer demand. Moreover, as agriculture becomes increasingly integrated with markets, technology, finance and services, the role of agribusiness and value-chain institutions in shaping development outcomes has grown both in scale and complexity.

Against this backdrop, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and CGIAR Program on Policy Innovations in collaboration with the Agricultural Economics Research Association (AERA) and its co-organizers, convened a policy dialogue on “Transforming AgriValue Chains: Emerging Frontiers for Agribusiness” on 3 December 2025 at ICAR–NAARM, Hyderabad. The policy dialogue brought together policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and development partners to examine how agri-value chains (AVCs) and agribusiness can drive inclusive, productive, and resilient agri-food system transformation in India.

Myanmar Monthly Food Price Report – December 2025

Rice prices declined sharply in December 2025 nationally, falling by 20 percent year-on-year and 5 percent month-on-month. These declines were driven by falling international prices and increased market supply from the monsoon harvest. All states and regions saw stable or declining prices month-on-month, with the largest drops observed in major rice-producing regions such as Ayeyarwady (30 percent) and Sagaing (19 percent). While these trends benefit consumers, they raise concerns for paddy producers, especially in light of rising agricultural input costs. Prices of pulses diverged. Green gram prices rose sharply year-on-year (21 percent), supported by export demand following China’s decision to ease its temporary suspension. In contrast, black gram, chickpea, and pigeon pea prices remained well below last year’s levels, reflecting weak demand from India. Maize prices also declined year-on-year (6.5 percent). Animal-sourced food prices surged over the past year, led by mutton (up 58 percent), due to lower production, while fish prices rose amid strong export demand. Multiple risks lie ahead, including weak international agricultural commodity prices, ongoing conflict, export quality concerns, import restrictions affecting livestock production, border trade and regional policy changes, and policy uncertainty, all of which may undermine agricultural incentives, farm incomes, and food security.

A novel approach to agricultural policy analysis applied to crop diversification in Bangladesh

Traditional approaches to policy analysis often provide only a partial understanding of the complexities of agricultural policies and their outcomes. This study addresses the important problem of how to evaluate such policies in a manner that captures their effects across historical, political, socio- economics and environmental dimensions and operational challenges. To do so, the paper develops and applies a new analytical framework that combines elements of policy and program analysis with validation through the views of experts and intended beneficiaries. The framework integrates multiple dimensions into a cohesive structure and specifically applied to the case of crop diversification policies in Bangladesh (1971–2023), combining a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 1223 projects, trend analysis of crop production and qualitative insights from 12 key informants. The findings show that the framework uncovers critical gaps in policy design, highlights institutional and operational constraints, and brings out the perspectives of diverse stakeholders, thereby providing a more grounded account of agricultural policy outcomes of Bangladesh. The study contributes by offering a practical and adaptable method that improves transparency, deepens understanding of institutional dynamics, and supports the formulation of context-specific and effective interventions. The insights from Bangladesh demonstrate the broader relevance of the approach for low- and middle-income countries seeking to strengthen agricultural policy and promote sustainable development.

Outcome assessment of the digital agriculture ecosystem in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is making gradual but notable progress toward the digital transformation of its agricultural sector, driven by investments in connectivity, digital infrastructure, and cross-institutional coordination. Recent policy milestones have established an enabling foundation for scale, including the Digital Ethiopia 2025 and Digital Ethiopia 2030, personal data protection regulation and governance frameworks, and national roadmaps that will steer investment and implementation over the next decade—particularly the Digital Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services (DAEAS) roadmap and the Digital Agriculture Roadmap (DAR). However, persistent structural constraints such as limited rural internet coverage, low smartphone penetration, and unreliable electricity continue to shape the pace and equity of adoption. This paper synthesizes Ethiopia’s digital agriculture ecosystem with a focus on technology, data and analytical capacity, and policy environment. In the technology landscape, work is ongoing to develop decision-support applications alongside digital channels for delivering advisory services. Evidence from multiple pilot initiatives suggests these tools can expand outreach cost-effectively and improve the timeliness and relevance of agronomic guidance. The success of various pilot projects, along with valuable lessons from earlier efforts, strong government commitment, and supportive policies, has driven further investment in Ethiopia’s digital ecosystem. Nonetheless, substantial gaps remain in data availability and quality that limits the production of high-quality and context-specific advisory content. In addition, the reach and intensity of extension services needed to translate digital innovation into sustained productivity gains, income and livelihoods is not yet at the level desired. While Ethiopia’s digital agriculture agenda is well-positioned for accelerated scale, its impact will depend on resolving foundational constraints in last-mile connectivity, power reliability, and the institutions and pipelines required for trustworthy data and localized advisory at national scale.

Synopsis: Economywide assessment of CSA interventions in building resilient agri-food systems in Rwanda

This research extends IFPRI’s RIAPA modeling to include both the full implementation of PSTA 5’s climate smart agriculture and a once-in-five-year weather shock, and the interactions of both on agricultural sectors, agricultural GDP, and on national GDP. Main findings include:

Rwanda’s agri-food system is highly vulnerable to climate variability due to its structural characteristics.

Results indicate that CSA practices during the PSTA-5 period (2024/25–2028/29) increase agricultural GDP growth by 0.9 percentage points annually, with the largest impacts on horticulture and roots and tubers. However, several CSA interventions relate to infrastructural improvements and therefore the benefits extend over a longer time horizon, ultimately having even greater impact beyond PSTA 5.

The weather shock causes dramatic declines in agricultural GDP (-1.6 percent), with horticulture affected most negatively, suffering a 2.4 percent decline.

The joint Climate + CSA scenario depicts how CSA helps mitigate, but not fully eliminate, the negative impacts of weather shocks during the PSTA 5 period.

The state of fisheries in Hadramawt: Insights from a scoping review

In this project note, we review prior research and integrate insights from 14 semi-structured key informant interviews with experts on fisheries in southern Yemen to synthesize current knowledge on fisheries in Hadramawt governorate—home to the largest population of fishers in Yemen—and identify gaps that warrant further investigation.

Towards Inclusive Climate Information Services: What We Learned and What Comes Next: Experiences from AICCRA, 2021-2025

This InfoNote synthesizes lessons from the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) program (2021–2025) on advancing gender-responsive and socially inclusive climate information services (CIS) across Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, and Zambia. Drawing on implementation experience, research, and evaluation evidence, it examines how differences in gender, age, livelihood roles, and social position shape access to, use of, and benefits from climate information. The note highlights approaches that improve inclusivity and usability of CIS, including participatory co-production of advisory content, multi-channel delivery systems, gender-responsive extension services, and innovations such as gamification, inclusive artificial intelligence, and gender-responsive cost–benefit analysis. It also explores the role of community platforms, participatory scenario planning, and ag-data hubs in strengthening last-mile delivery and enabling more equitable decision-making. While these approaches demonstrate promising pathways to expand the reach and relevance of CIS, persistent barriers—including unequal access to resources, digital divides, and institutional coordination challenges—continue to limit the ability of women, youth, and marginalized farmers to act on climate information. The InfoNote concludes with recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to institutionalize inclusive CIS systems, strengthen evidence and monitoring frameworks, and link climate information with complementary services that enable climate-informed action.

School meals in the 21st century: Key evidence gaps and future directions

School meal programs are a widely implemented safety net with documented impacts across social protection, education, health and nutrition and high estimated returns to investment (Alderman et al., 2024). Globally, in 2022, these programs reached over 400 million children for a total investment of $70 billion a year(Global Child Nutrition Foundation, 2024).

The School Meals Coalition (SMC) created in 2021 and involving 106 member countries, has brought momentum and new opportunities for school meals. Collaborative research activities by development partners from the SMC have included evidence generation, review and synthesis, and the identification of key research gaps on school meal programs.

This article provides the basis for a common research agenda to support evidence generation aimed at improving action on sustainable school meal programs. These evidence gaps were generated through a series of activities including evidence reviews, expert consultations and stakeholder workshops undertaken by SMC partners.

Sudan prices and availability monitoring survey (SPAMS): Methodology, coverage, and value addition

Sudan is facing profound economic and market disruptions driven by prolonged conflict, political instability, and severe macroeconomic deterioration. These shocks have substantially undermined agricultural production, disrupted supply chains, and weakened market functioning across the country. Agriculture, which remains central to livelihoods, food security, and economic activity in Sudan, has been particularly affected by infrastructure damage, population displacement, rising input and transport costs, and increasing fragmentation of markets. In this context, food availability and affordability have become highly volatile, with wide spatial disparities across states and localities.

Moving the technology frontiers in African agrifood systems: An analytical framework

The transformation of African agrifood systems stands as one of the most urgent and complex development challenges of the 21st century. With over 60 percent of the continent’s population relying on agriculture for their livelihoods, the sector holds tremendous potential to serve as a catalyst for broad-based economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food and nutrition security. This potential, however, remains largely untapped. Agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to stagnate; despite decades of reform efforts and policy commitments, it lags significantly behind other regions of the world (Ulimwengu et al. 2025).

Capacity development needs and roadmap

This report integrates an assessment of institutional readiness for Earth observation (EO)-based crop monitoring in Mozambique with a roadmap for sustaining and scaling an EO and digital workflow for agricultural statistics. The aim is to:
Baseline current capacity by systematically evaluating the institutional readiness and willingness within key government organizations to adopt and sustain EO-based systems.
Identify gaps and risks by pinpointing specific challenges, from technical shortages to policy misalignments, that could prevent the sustained adoption of EO technology beyond a project's life cycle.
Document actions to maintain or raise the institutional readiness level to ensure the project's desired impact is feasible.

The narrative focuses on what would be required to move from project demonstration to routine production and use, with the Ministério da Agricultura, Ambiente e Pescas (MAAP, formerly the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, MADER) and the Regional Centre of Excellence in Agrifood Systems and Nutrition (CE-AFSN) at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM, formerly the Centro de Estudo de Políticas e Programas Agroalimentares, CEPPAG) as the main national counterparts and with due recognition of the role of the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE).

The readiness assessment highlights that Mozambique has strong potential for EO-enabled agricultural data, but that this potential is constrained by fragmented technical capacity, limited government resourcing for software and computing, a reliance on short-term projects and external consultants, and weak institutional arrangements for data ownership, openness, and inter-agency collaboration. It also identifies governance risks created by outdated foundational baselines that continue to shape policy and sampling design.

The roadmap therefore centres on a staged transition. In the near term, priority lies in formalising mandates, custodianship, documentation, and integration pathways with existing survey and census processes. In the medium term, priority lies in building repeatable operational capability and reducing dependence on a small number of individuals. In the longer term, priority lies in embedding stewardship and financing, updating national baselines on a defined cycle, and using the donor-led Development Partners Group for Agriculture and Rural Development (AgRED) group as a coordination mechanism to align partner support and reduce duplication.

Moving the technology frontiers in African agrifood systems: Lessons from Latin America

Africa’s agrifood systems face a complex set of structural challenges. Low productivity, high vulnerability to climate shocks, fragmented markets, and weak integration into global value chains continue to constrain development. Yet these challenges coexist with significant opportunities. The region’s demographic profile—with more than 50 percent of the population under the age of 25 years—and a projected population growth rate of 2.3 percent in 2025 offer the potential for a demographic dividend that could help drive transformation in agri-food systems.

Advancing mechanization in African agrifood systems: Unlocking productivity and resilience

This chapter examines the role of mechanization in transforming African agrifood systems within the broader discourse on technological change, structural transformation, and sustainable development. The motivation is to address the persistent challenges of low productivity, rural poverty, labor shortages, and vulnerability to climate change that continue to constrain the agricultural sector across the continent.

Youth in relation to agroecology: practices, promises, and perceptions in five countries

In the context of rising youth populations in many low- and middle-income countries, coupled with high youth unemployment and aging farmer populations, this paper asks in what ways agroecology, as a sustainable alternative to the conventional agricultural practices and paradigm, attracts youth to farming and rural-based livelihoods. We draw on empirical data from semi-structured interviews and photovoice conducted with young women and men in five countries: Kenya, India, Peru, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe. In our discussion, we highlight which dimensions and aspects of agroecology resonate with youth and why.

The impact of a continuum of care intervention from prevention to treatment on child wasting compared to usual community group activities: A cluster randomized controlled trial in Mali

Background
Child wasting is associated with a high mortality risk and remains a persistent public health challenge.

Objective
This study aimed to evaluate the impact of an intervention strengthening the continuum of care of child wasting from prevention, screening, and referral to treatment in Mali.

Methods
A two-arm cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted using two study designs to evaluate impact and pathways: i) a longitudinal study of children enrolled at 6 months (n=2,324) with monthly follow-up for 3–6 months to assess wasting prevalence (primary outcome); ii) a longitudinal study of all children 6–23 months admitted to outpatient therapeutic programs (OTP; n=7,104) assessing recovery and adherence. Additional OTP coverage surveys were conducted at the end of the study. In both study arms, nutrition activity support groups (NASG) screened children for wasting and provided caregiver behavior change communication (BCC). The intervention arm additionally received small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS), child-centered BCC, family-led screening, and follow-up on referred wasting cases to support OTP admission and adherence.

Results
The intervention did not impact wasting prevalence but reduced the incidence of wasting (relative risk (RR): 0.80, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.64, 0.99) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) (RR: 0.71, 95%CI: 0.57, 0.89). The intervention significantly increased wasting screening coverage by 37 pp (95%CI: 31, 44) and SAM treatment coverage by 15 pp (95%CI: 0.35, 30). No impacts of the intervention on OTP recovery or adherence were found. NASGs often replaced the monthly home visits with community gatherings to deliver the intervention. NASGs also often distributed SQ-LNS to children they identified with wasting instead of referring them to the OTP.

Conclusions
Strengthening the continuum of care of wasting through community groups reduced the incidence of wasting and SAM and improved screening coverage, which translated into a modest gain in SAM treatment coverage.

Optimizing school meals in Ghana: Integrating new food and nutrient standards with aspects of affordability, cultural acceptability and environmental sustainability

Objectives:
To optimize school food baskets in Ghana to meet newly proposed food and nutrition targets while considering cultural acceptability and cost.

Design:
Modeling study. Data on existing school meal menus was collected from various regions to provide baseline inputs. Linear programming (LP) was used to model school meal baskets that satisfied minimum nutrient and food targets for school meals while meeting cost and acceptability constraints. Five LP models were tested, each varying in budget constraints and acceptability/food-based parameters.

Results:
Baseline school food baskets were significantly deficient in energy, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin A, folate, vitamin B12 and vitamin C compared to food and nutrient standards for school meals in Ghana. Optimization resulted in school food baskets that met cost, nutrient and food-based/acceptability targets but with substantial deviations from baseline. Achieving nutritional adequacy within cost limits increased reliance on animal-source foods and led to higher environmental impacts, indicating trade-offs between nutrition, affordability, and environmental sustainability.

Conclusion:
The study underscores LP’s potential for enhancing school meals in Ghana but highlights the need for increased financial investment for reaching dietary goals. Addressing local realities and cultural preferences is essential for implementing effective, sustainable school meal strategies and improving child health.

Impact assessments of gender transformative interventions in Tanzania: Pre-analysis plan

Transforming gender norms improves women’s wellbeing and may help close the agricultural productivity gap, yet evidence on pairing them with agriculture interventions is limited. We will test an innovative approach to developing and delivering gender transformative interventions with cassava producers in Tanzania. Using a cluster-randomized controlled trial, we examine the impact of these gender transformative interventions paired with standard agricultural service, compared to agricultural services alone, on the primary (gender norms, decision making, and women’s leadership) and secondary (agricultural productivity, women’s savings, and women’s access to land) outcomes. Qualitative methods will examine changes in intra-couple dynamics (communication, decision making, and division of labor).

Supply- and demand-side factors influencing uptake of anemia interventions: Systematic review of evidence from low-and-middle income countries

This Research Note summarizes findings from a systematic review that included published papers and reports from 27 low-and-middle income countries on barriers and facilitators to uptake of interventions to address anemia. The findings from this review, could inform programs and policies across sectors to strengthen delivery and uptake of interventions for reducing anemia.

Measuring collective agency in women's self-help groups: Comparing measurement approaches and practical guidance for scaling

Rural livelihoods under prolonged conflict: Evidence from a panel household survey in Sudan

This report presents evidence from the Sudan Rural Household Survey of 2023 and 2024, a two-wave panel survey that assesses how rural households are navigating prolonged conflict. By tracking the same households over time, the survey provides longitudinal insights into livelihoods, food security, access to markets and productive resources, and exposure to shocks across an insecure and rapidly evolving context. The findings from the survey data analysis point to an uneven pattern of economic adjustment by households rather than sustained recovery. Rural households are actively adapting through changes in livelihood strategies, income diversification, and increased participation of household members in income-generating activities. Compared to 2023, fewer households reported in 2024 having no employment. Engagement in salaried work and agriculture also rose. Despite these shifts, income losses remain widespread. Only a small share of households reported improved earnings in 2024, indicating that adaptation is largely driven by necessity rather than durable recovery. Food consumption outcomes improved markedly between survey waves, with substantial declines in the share of households in 2024 reporting poor or borderline diets. At the same time, experience-based measures show that food insecurity remains pervasive, with more than half of rural households facing moderate or severe food insecurity. There has been little change in the prevalence of severe food insecurity. The continuing food insecurity challenges underscore the fragility of recent gains and the continued vulnerability of many households.

Unpacking the political economy of fertilizer subsidy reforms

Global calls to repurpose agricultural support toward more sustainable and equitable food systems have intensified scrutiny of fertilizer subsidies. While political economy constraints often hinder reform, the exact manifestation of these constraints is rarely examined. To clarify the specific mechanisms at play, this paper systematically reviews peer-reviewed studies from 2000 to 2025 and identifies 38 fertilizer subsidy reform cases across 15 countries. We code political economy factors influencing outcomes at different stages of subsidy adoption and redesign. The analysis shows that ideational factors around self-sufficiency, the private sector, and the social contract, as well as the institutional structures impacting policymaking, are central to successful subsidy introduction. Electoral incentives play a role at both the policy introduction and redesign phases. Yet, political economy factors are not the only prominent drivers. In fact, technocratic considerations about underperformance or corruption became more prominent during redesign efforts but were also present in more than 80 percent of failed cases. This reaffirms that while technocratic factors, including the availability of research and evidence are necessary for subsidy design improvements, they are not sufficient on their own. By distinguishing which political economy factors matter and how they interact with broader policy process dynamics, this study provides a more actionable foundation for anticipating and managing challenges to fertilizer subsidy reforms and repurposing more broadly.

Water for food security: The contribution of CGIAR in addressing global agricultural water challenges

Water is a fundamental input for food production and is used extensively across all agricultural activities, including crop cultivation, livestock production, aquaculture, and food processing. Substantial investments have been made to expand water supply capacity for agriculture, which has made a significant contribution to agricultural production growth (FAO, 2021). At the same time, the intensive use of water in agriculture and related processes creates significant pressures on water resources and aquatic ecosystems. Water scarcity and pollution are among the major water-related challenges associated with global food production, which are directly relevant to SDG 6.

2020-21 Social Accounting Matrix for Pakistan

The Pakistan Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) 2020-21 provides a comprehensive, economy-wide dataset linking production, factor incomes, institutions, and external accounts at the national level, with an integrated hydrological component. Developed by IFPRI and IWMI, the dataset extends the standard SAM framework to capture interlinkages between water, agriculture, and the broader economy, supporting policy analysis and modeling of water-food-economy interactions.

The 2020-21 Pakistan SAM is developed based on existing SAM frameworks to update the Pakistan national SAM from 201314, tying often to the structure of Nexus SAMs developed by IFPRI under its NEXUS Program (see https://www.ifpri.org/project/nexus-project/). It incorporates revised estimates across production, factor, and institutional accounts to better represent Pakistans water use, agricultural systems, and economic flows.

The hydrology data is updated using data compiled from sources which include the recent tube-well census in Punjab, surface water flow data, meteorological data, water storage levels and capacity, water efficiency and climate data. The hydrology data is mainly used to update IFPRIs Computable General Equilibrium- Water (CGE-W) model.

The SAM is structured to include:

1. Activities and commodities disaggregated by major sectors (agriculture, industry, services)
2. Factors of production, including labor (by skill and sector), land, and capital

3. Institutions, including rural and urban households, enterprises, and government

4. Accounts for taxes, savings-investment, and rest of the world, allowing macroeconomic closure and inter-institutional flow analysis

IMPACT model training for Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI): Feedback survey report

A four-day training program (24-27 November 2025) on the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT), organized by the Division of Agricultural Economics, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) - Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), was designed to strengthen participants’ capacity in global agricultural modeling and scenario-based policy analysis. Through a comprehensive curriculum developed by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the workshop provided both conceptual grounding and hands-on experience in using the IMPACT model and its network of linked modules, including climate, water, crop, and welfare models. Participants learned to design and run scenarios in GAMS and the IMPACT Excel Interface, interpret model results, and apply them to real-world questions in agricultural policy, climate change, and trade. The program emphasized the integration of biophysical and economic data for ex-ante policy analysis and equipped researchers to conduct multidimensional assessments of food security, technology adoption, and environmental sustainability.

Workshop on applied policy research for scaling innovations in Uzbekistan’s agri-food sector

Uzbekistan’s agri-food sector is undergoing rapid transformation driven by structural reforms, growing water scarcity, and the need to build climate resilience across farms of all sizes. Some progress has been made in introducing water-saving irrigation technologies, digital agriculture tools, improved seed systems, mechanization solutions, and cluster-based value chains. These initiatives demonstrate strong potential, yet their scale and impact remain uneven. Fragmented policy implementation, overlapping institutional mandates, and weak coordination between ministries and agencies continue to limit the nationwide adoption of innovative technologies.

Scaling effective solutions requires more than the introduction of new practices or tools. It depends on a clear understanding of which innovations work, in which agro-ecological and socio-economic contexts, and what policy or market conditions enable their uptake. Applied policy research is therefore essential for identifying scaling pathways, diagnosing bottlenecks, and quantifying the expected and actual effects of reforms and programs. Without this evidence, policy decisions risk being disconnected from on-the-ground realities and may fail to generate the intended outcomes.

This workshop brought together policymakers, researchers, and development partners to strengthen the role of applied policy research in scaling agri-food innovations in Uzbekistan. Discussions emphasized the importance of embedding dynamic Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Impact Assessment (MELIA) systems into policy and program cycles to enable adaptive decision-making, accountability, and timely course correction. Embedding dynamic evaluation and adaptive MELIA into policymaking processes strengthens the evidence base. A system that continuously generates, verifies, and updates information allows government institutions to adjust policies and correct implementation gaps. Such an adaptive MELIA approach is critical for maintaining the relevance of scaling strategies in the face of climate variability, resource constraints, and rapidly evolving market conditions.

Key messages emerging from the workshop include: (i) the need for harmonized and accessible data systems across value chains; (ii) systematic use of feasibility and socio-economic analysis before scaling innovations; (iii) stronger coordination of institutional roles and mandates; and (iv) targeted capacity development for both institutions and farmers. Participants also highlighted the importance of equity and inclusion, ensuring that women, youth, small farms, and vulnerable groups benefit from innovation scaling.

The workshop concluded with agreement on priority areas for joint applied policy research and a forward agenda for 2026 and beyond. These priorities include strengthening data quality and harmonization, evaluating subsidy effectiveness, developing region-specific water-use methodologies, and institutionalizing MELIA as a core element of agricultural governance. Collectively, these actions aim to support evidence-informed policymaking and accelerate the scaling of inclusive, resilient, and sustainable innovations across Uzbekistan’s agri-food sector.

By combining applied policy research, adaptive MELIA, and stronger coordination across institutions, Uzbekistan can accelerate the scaling of agricultural innovations and deliver more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable outcomes for its agri-food sector.

Bridging gender gaps in political participation: Experimental evidence on group-based trainings from Nigeria

Women’s political participation remains persistently lower than men’s worldwide. While barriers to women’s civic engagement are well documented, there is limited causal evidence on how to effectively close gender gaps in participation. This study evaluates whether a group-based training intervention can enhance women’s engagement in local governance. In a randomized controlled trial across 300 communities in rural southwest Nigeria, we recruited 3,900 politically unaffiliated women into newly formed women’s action committees (WACs). Control WACs received a single civic education training, while treatment WACs received five additional trainings aimed at strengthening women’s collective efficacy over the course of six months. Leveraging baseline (May–July 2023) and endline (January—February 2024) surveys alongside behavioral data from a community grants competition, we find that the intervention significantly increased both the level and quality of women’s political participation. Treated communities also exhibited greater responsiveness by local leaders to women’s needs and priorities. These findings show that group-based interventions can meaningfully and scalably narrow gender gaps in civic participation.

Scaling biofortified zinc wheat through policy reform and partnerships in Punjab, Pakistan

Between 2019 and 2023, Pakistan’s Zinc Wheat (ZnW) initiative achieved rapid scaling from pilot to national level through coordinated policy reform, institutional investment, and private-sector engagement. Initially constrained by weak seed systems, limited farmer awareness, and fragmented policy implementation, the enabling environment for zinc wheat transformed through reforms in seed certification, public investment in early generation seed (EGS), and targeted digital advisories for farmers. Punjab province, accounting for most of Pakistan’s wheat area, became the central hub for scaling. This was facilitated through the joint efforts of the Punjab Agriculture Department, Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, HarvestPlus, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and private seed companies, which resulted in the area planted with zinc wheat expanding from 64,000 to over 3.1 million hectares, reaching 3.3 million farming households and more than 20 million consumers. This case illustrates how coordinated institutional, policy, and market interventions can translate research innovation into widespread impact, improving both agricultural productivity and population nutrition.

Inflation and diets among poor mothers in Egypt

Global food price increases and widespread inflationary shocks negatively affect poor households’ diets, particularly those of women who are more likely to be food insecure compared to men. This study evaluates the relationship between changes in food prices triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022 and poor mothers’ diets in Egypt, a country that heavily relies on imports of staple foods and is highly vulnerable to increases in international food prices. We combine food group specific governorate-level consumer price index (CPI) data with data on diets of 2,868 poor mothers in Egypt collected before and after the onset of the war. Additionally, we examine the potential protective effect of Egypt’s large-scale food subsidy program, Tamween, whereby specific foods are sold at subsidized prices at specific retailers. Using two-way fixed effects models, we find that changes in food prices are significantly associated with changes in the composition of mothers’ diets. Mothers were less likely to consume dairy and fish and more likely to consume pulses and sweetened beverages after the war began. Poor mothers decreased consumption of unsubsidized foods, suggesting a protective role of the Egyptian food subsidy program. This paper also provides suggestive evidence that poor mothers from households engaged in agricultural production could be slightly less responsive to changes in food prices compared to mothers from households that do not engage in agricultural production.

Assessment of the facilitation process of establishing a living lab for co-creating locally-led climate action in Caquetá/Colombia

One of the key ambitions of the CGIAR Climate Action Program is to support structures that enable affected people to take ownership of food system innovation processes and to determine their goals, strategies, and modalities. To this end, the program team adopts and expands the concept of living labs, understood as social spaces - virtual or physical - where stakeholders co-develop new ways of thinking and acting to transform collaboration and practices.

In the Department of Caquetá, within the Colombian Amazon, the program supports a place-based and community-led living lab focused on inclusion, environmental justice, and peacebuilding—an initiative participants have termed the “Participatory Rural Innovation Lab: Towards a Sustainable Territory” (PRIL).

This paper presents the results of an assessment of the early dynamics in PRIL’s development in light of the normative principles of the living lab approach. Moreover, it examines whether significant power and agency imbalances exist and to what extent contextual factors influence the process.

Importance of tenure and governance for multifunctional landscapes

Agricultural production occurs within landscapes that combine crop fields along with other types of land uses such as animal grazing areas, forests, agroforestry areas, wetlands, and water bodies, each influencing and being influenced by the others (Altieri et al., 2018). While these are often considered separately, there are complex flows of resources—including nutrients, water, energy, and labor—among these different components. What is done on one area will affect others. For example, use of pesticides to increase production of certain crops can kill pollinators that are needed for other crops, or pollute waters that affect fish downstream. Positive externalities are also possible: afforestation can reduce soil erosion and affect the timing and volumes of water flows.

Urban markets in Honduras and Guatemala: Dynamics, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable healthy diets

This study analyzes the dynamics of urban food markets in Honduras and Guatemala, with the objective of understanding their linkages with smallholder farmers and their role in the availability of and accessibility to nutritious foods. The analysis was based on 86 interviews with retailers, smallholder farmers, and local agents, such as representatives from government programs and non-governmental organizations involved in market regulation, technical assistance, and support to smallholders. The study assessed factors that determine prices, supply stability, postharvest losses, and consumer preferences. The results show that intermediary actors are the main mechanism supporting local value chains, which connect rural production with urban markets; this ensures continuous supply but limits the direct participation of smallholder farmers. Seasonality, high transport costs, and lack of cold storage infrastructure contribute to price instability and losses of up to 40 percent for some products. Consumers prioritize freshness and appearance over nutritional attributes or local origin. Based on these findings, the authors suggest strengthening short value chains, investing in postharvest infrastructure such as cold storage units to reduce food loss, and raising awareness about healthy diets to promote sustainability and nutrition among urban consumers. These actions would contribute to more inclusive urban markets and resilient value chains, aligned with the expected outcomes of Area of Work 2: Market Systems for Better Diets under CGIAR’s Better Diets and Nutrition (BDN) Science Program.

SAA's extension model: Scaling sustainable farming in Nigeria

In Nigeria, scaling agricultural innovations faces a major enabling environment challenge. This includes weak national extension systems, low extension officers-farmer ratios (1:1,800–1:3,000) and ineffective input-output market linkages, limiting technology adoption, and value addition for smallholders. The Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) addressed this through its Value-Chain Based Extension (VCBE) Models, including Commodity Association Trader-Trainers and post-harvest centers, fostering public-private partnerships to build capacity, improve group dynamics, and create aggregation hubs. This innovative extension model has mobilized agricultural produce valued at approximately USD 3.9 million and delivered significant impact for smallholder farmers. The approach has doubled maize yields—from traditional levels of 2,438 kg/ha to 4,823 kg/ha—while enhancing incomes for more than 455,200 farmers. These outcomes are strengthening both food security and economic resilience across participating communities.

Small and medium enterprise development for climate adaptation and an inclusive food system in Egypt

Rural households in many low- and middle-income countries remain highly dependent on agriculture and related value chain activities, making them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. As rising temperatures and increasing climate variability reduce agricultural productivity and income stability, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly promoted as a path toward rural development and the transformation of the agrifood systems (AFS). Yet, little is known about whether climate change influences rural households’ decision to start an enterprise to diversify or switch their income sources away from agriculture-related activities in order to adapt to weather risks. We address this research gap by drawing from nationally representative data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey 2023 and estimating a dynamic duration model to explore how heat stress is linked to households’ likelihood to start a (nonfarm) SME. Our findings offer new evidence for climate-responsive rural policy and SME support strategies in vulnerable regions.

Life after a cluster intervention: Insights from shrimp farming in Bangladesh

This project note summarizes insights from a three-year research project focused on an ambitious cluster intervention by the Department of Fisheries (DoF), Government of Bangladesh for shrimp farmers. In 2022, as part of a World Bank funded project, the Department of Fisheries organized smallholder shrimp farmers with contiguous ponds into clusters in Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat districts in southwest Bangladesh. Each cluster brought together 20-25 farmers, with pond sizes of at most 1.5 acres in size, to deliver training on best management practices, supply inputs, and encourage coordination. Group members were encouraged to follow a suite of management practices aimed at raising farm productivity, reducing the incidence of shrimp disease, and increasing the supply of raw material for processors. These measures included farming bagda shrimp (P. monodon)—Bangladesh’s main export species—in monoculture, raising shrimp stocking densities, stocking disease-free shrimp larvae (SPFPL), using factory-made feeds, deepening ponds, erecting biosecurity fencing, and coordinating stocking and harvesting activities with other group members. The costs of deepening ponds and adopting other improved management practices were borne by farmers themselves, but the clusters that made these investments received free SPF-PL and feed as incentives for doing so. The goal of this cluster intervention was to promote sufficient volumes of shrimp for processing plants for export, eventually paving the way for instituting traceability systems and group-based sustainability certification, increasingly a requirement in global retail markets. Even at the time of inception, the cluster program was intended as a time-bound two-year project that would end in 2025.

Targeting of food aid programs: Evidence from Egypt

In-kind food aid programs remain prominent world-wide. Targeting in these programs is complex due to potential distortions in consumption. This paper advances the literature by moving beyond poverty-based targeting to address nutritional objectives. Using data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we apply machine learning (ML) techniques to analyze heterogeneity in impacts across nutritional outcomes, aiming to inform targeting based on observable characteristics. We find that such characteristics significantly predict heterogeneity in treatment effects, though relevant predictors differ by outcome and treatment type. Building on recent literature advocating for balancing of deprivation and expected impact, we show that, in our context, the trade-off between targeting the most impacted versus the most deprived households is limited. Instead, the main challenge is prioritizing among competing nutritional objectives. Our findings indicate that ML methods can inform outcome-specific targeting criteria, though these criteria vary across outcomes and are imperfectly correlated.

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative: Abstract digest December 2025

The seventh edition of the Abstract Digest highlights a nutrition landscape in South Asia—and globally— marked by persistent anemia, poor dietary quality, and uneven progress in delivering effective interventions at scale. Several studies focus on anemia reduction, including a series published by The Lancet, showing that despite long-standing global commitments, most countries remain off track to meet current targets. New modelling evidence suggests that the existing Sustainable Development Goal of halving anemia prevalence among women of reproductive age by 2030 is unlikely to be achieved with current approaches, underscoring the need to prioritize more realistic and cost-effective strategies. Across maternal, child, and adolescent nutrition, featured studies examine trends and determinants of anemia among mother–child dyads in India, the effectiveness of multiple micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy in Bangladesh, and the strong link between maternal and child dietary diversity across low- and middle-income countries. Other articles draw attention to the growing influence of food environments and modern food systems in South Asia, including high consumption of ultra-processed foods and emerging links between climate change, food systems, and inflammation-related health outcomes. This edition also highlights evidence from Nepal on adolescent nutrition challenges and implementation research, alongside reviews pointing to gaps in evaluation methods and the need for better-aligned measurement tools. Together, the articles in this edition reinforce the importance of aligning evidence, policy, and delivery systems, and call for more rigorous evaluation of scalable nutrition interventions in real-world settings. A blog from the recent annual Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia conference, held in Kathmandu, Nepal and online from December 2–4, highlights key lessons on what it takes to achieve nutrition impact at scale. Please scroll down to explore these articles. If you were forwarded this Abstract Digest, we invite you to subscribe. Happy reading!

Pakistan agri-food system: Assessment report

Despite agriculture’s central role in Pakistan’s economic growth, the sector continues to struggle with decades old structural issues and its performance is weak. Spending on subsidies for water, fertilizer, electricity, and wheat procurement reached US$1.25 billion in Punjab alone, far more than the funding provided for research and development. Inefficient and fragmented value chains, high post-harvest losses and transport costs, limited access to formal markets, dependence on subsidies, and underdeveloped storage and processing infrastructure are among the significant problems affecting agriculture. The deep-rooted traditional system, characterized by reliance on commission agents and the weak implementation of market reforms both restrict farmers’ bargaining power, especially for smallholder farmers. Moreover, although on average the country’s population is food secure in terms of caloric sufficiency, limited dietary diversity and inadequate access to nutritious foods cause widespread malnutrition.

Regardless of these issues, some positive changes have been introduced. The recent rollback of wheat procurement and the minimum support price policy presents both challenges and opportunities as long-sought reconsideration of crop choices and promotion of higher value or climate-resilient alternative crops now seems possible. Market reform under the Punjab Agriculture Marketing Regulatory Authority (PAMRA), created as an initiative of the World Bank’s SMART program, presents another opportunity, particularly as the notified areas for central markets have been dropped, creating an opening for more competition. Although implementation remains slow, the Authority has begun paving the way for market modernization. However, this transition must be supported by improvements in market access, development of an improved and well-managed storage network, and well-functioning price mechanisms to protect food security and farmer incomes.

In addition to the marketing, value addition, and productivity challenges identified above, climate change will also create constraints and challenges for agri-food development and transformation in Pakistan. The sector faces likely increases in extreme events, particularly flooding, as well as longer-run chronic effects of heat on yields and labor productivity in agriculture, rising salinity and land drying, and increasing crop water requirements even as other demands for water increase.

Effects of brick kiln industry on agricultural productivity: A natural experiment in Bangladesh

Agriculture remains central to Bangladesh’s economy and food security, yet it is increasingly threatened by the rapid expansion of informal brick manufacturing that extracts fertile topsoil from cropland and generates heavy local pollution. This paper provides national-scale causal evidence on how brick kiln expansion affects vegetation health and agricultural productivity by combining long-run satellite observations with geolocated kiln data. We construct a spatiotemporal panel of unions and municipalities using annual the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer normalized difference vegetation index (MODIS NDVI) from 2002–2024 and a high-resolution inventory of 9,187 brick kilns detected through satellite imagery and machine learning. Using a continuous and staggered difference-in-differences design, we find no evidence of differential pre-trends, but we do find a clear and persistent deterioration in vegetation health following kiln establishment. The magnitude is economically meaningful: a marginal increase in kiln presence is associated with roughly a 1 percent annual decline in local vegetation productivity, with effects that persist and accumulate over time. These results are consistent with long-run soil degradation and chronic environmental exposure around kiln sites, and they imply substantial hidden costs of informal industrial growth in densely cultivated landscapes. The findings highlight the urgency of stronger enforcement of siting rules, of incentives for cleaner production technologies, and of land-use planning that protects high-productivity agricultural zones.

Are food policies empowering women? Framework, measurement, and empirical evidence from India and Nigeria

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize equal participation and empowerment of women in all levels of decisionmaking, yet frameworks and tools to measure and strengthen women's empowerment in policy spaces remain limited. Focusing on agrifood systems, this paper introduces a framework, metrics, and scoring method to track women’s empowerment in policy processes (WEAGov) and presents findings from pilot applications in India and Nigeria. The pilots draw on novel surveys with more than 200 agrifood organizations and policy experts across the public sector, private sector, civil society, and research communities in both countries. Across both countries, we find that agrifood policy documents incorporate gender priorities on paper but fall short in budgeting, implementation, and evaluation. Prevailing social attitudes and limited awareness of policies, regulations, and legal rights remain major constraints on women’s ability to engage meaningfully in policy processes. Women participate as staff and mid-level managers in agrifood organizations, but their representation at higher decision-making levels are limited. Expert assessments also highlight disconnects between formal roles and the actual influence women can exert over policy decisions. Gender-responsive budgeting processes are absent in Nigeria and weakly-institutionalized in India, where compliance has become procedural rather than transformative. These patterns reveal persistent bottlenecks in translating gender commitments into practice. By systematically tracking barriers and identifying entry points for reform, the WEAGov framework offers governments, researchers, and civil society organizations a practical tool to diagnose gaps in women’s empowerment in agrifood policy processes and to strengthen their inclusiveness and accountability.

Alineando el financiamiento verde con la política agropecuaria: De los compromisos globales a las soluciones locales

El documento analiza cómo el financiamiento verde puede alinearse con la política agropecuaria para apoyar sistemas agroalimentarios sostenibles frente a presiones ambientales globales como la degradación del suelo, la pérdida de biodiversidad y la variabilidad climática; enfatiza el papel de marcos internacionales como el Acuerdo de París y la necesidad de aumentar el financiamiento climático que llega al sector agrícola; destaca los avances de América Latina y el Caribe en taxonomías verdes y programas como el ABC+ de Brasil, subraya la importancia de sistemas sólidos de monitoreo, reporte y verificación, y revisa la evidencia que muestra que el crédito agropecuario condicionado puede impulsar prácticas sostenibles cuando existen instituciones fuertes y bajos costos de transacción, aunque persisten barreras, especialmente para pequeños productores; para Colombia, identifica tensiones ambientales significativas, desafíos estructurales rurales y avances en políticas como crecimiento verde, agroecología y finanzas climáticas, concluyendo que una mayor coordinación intersectorial, mecanismos financieros adaptativos, enfoques territoriales y estrategias centradas en los productores son esenciales para facilitar una transición justa hacia una productividad agropecuaria sostenible.

Este resumen ha sido proporcionado por inteligencia artificial generativa.

Breadwinner role and economic decision-making: Experimental evidence from Kenya

In several countries and settings, especially in low- and middle-income countries, men are expected to act as primary economic providers for their households, bearing the psychological and social burdens associated with this role. Despite its potential consequences, the effects of the breadwinner role on economic decision-making are understudied, particularly among poor households. This study investigates how gendered breadwinner expectations shape economic behavior in rural Kenya. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment among 400 smallholder farmers in Vihiga County, we test how psychological and social pressures associated with being the breadwinner of the family influence decision-making in both individual work choices and collective decisions. Participants completed a real-effort task choosing either a high-effort, high-reward option or a low-effort, low-reward alternative, followed by a public goods game framed around communal seed bank contributions. Results reveal that the heightened strain of the main breadwinner led male participants to reduce contributions to the communal seed bank by 0.2 standard deviations, while it did not affect their productivity in the real-effort task. These behavioral shifts suggest that the psychological consequences of breadwinner strain can undermine cooperation and the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices. Addressing the pressures of breadwinning can foster both economic resilience and social cohesion.

Women’s empowerment and conflict in Burkina Faso: Learning from a randomized trial and non-random conflict

Armed conflict has myriad negative consequences on the wellbeing of women and men, and its non-random nature makes it difficult to study its impacts. We examine the changes in empowerment during the period of 2017-2020 in western Burkina Faso as armed conflict moved closer. We combined data from the randomized-controlled trial of Soutenir l’Exploitation Familiale pour Lancer l’Elevage des Volailles et Valoriser l’Economie Rural (SELEVER) a gender- and nutrition-sensitive poultry production intervention, which collected the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index with geospatial- and date-specific data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project database. To evaluate the effect of conflict on empowerment, we estimated a continuous difference-in-difference model, separately for women and men, across multiple empowerment indicators, in which the primary explanatory variable describes the change in distance to conflict during this time period. Then, to determine if the SELEVER program had a protective effect when there was increased proximity to conflict, we estimated these models separately for the treatment and control groups and compare the difference in the coefficients. As conflict encroached, there was a shift in intrahousehold decision making that suggests less coordination between spouses and fewer decisions made jointly, along with a greater acceptance of intimate partner violence among women. We also found increases in other outcomes, such as men’s group membership, and women’s and men’s access to credit. These changes may be attributable to how communities responded and how humanitarian aid was delivered. We found that the SELEVER program had a protective effect on men’s work balance and the amount of time that both women and men spent working. Notably, however, women spent more time on childcare activities as conflict become closer.

Threshold effects of extreme heat on schooling and child labor in rural Bangladesh

Identifying threshold effects of extreme heat is key to understanding the true scale of climate-related risks to human capital development. This paper investigates how extreme heat shapes adolescent schooling and labor outcomes in rural Bangladesh, combining household survey data on adolescents with high-resolution temperature records to estimate the effects of prior-year, cumulative, and early-life heat exposure. We identify a precise temperature threshold at 36°C, above which each additional day reduces school attendance by 3.1 percentage points and increases child labor by 2.5 percentage points. Below this threshold, moderate heat (30-36°C) shows minimal single-year effects, though cumulative exposure over three years reveals significant negative impacts, indicating limited household adaptation. Effects are disproportionately concentrated among girls, who shift primarily toward household work rather than wage labor. Three interconnected channels drive these effects: heat-induced income shocks (11% reduction in household income), increased domestic labor demands from heat-related illness, and restrictive gender norms that amplify these impacts by magnifying girls’ household responsibilities. Extending the analysis to early-life conditions, exposure during the first 1,000 days also reduces adolescent schooling probability by 3.4-3.8 percentage points, with strongest effects at ages one and two. Boys show slightly larger early-life effects, contrasting with girls’ greater vulnerability to contemporaneous exposure, suggesting distinct mechanisms operating through biological development versus gendered household labor allocation. The findings point to both immediate income-mediated responses and long-term developmental pathways, with implications for temperature-triggered social protection, school infrastructure investments, and early-life health interventions.

See it grow: A randomized evaluation of a digital innovation to improve crop insurance contract design

Insurance has great potential to increase productive investments, but agricultural insurance markets remain thin, in part because asymmetric information limits the viability of indemnity-based contracts. This paper evaluates a digital innovation—picture-based insurance (PBI)—that uses smartphone images of insured crops to indemnify crop damage. Through a cluster randomized trial in seven counties in Kenya, we compare subsidized PBI to subsidized weather index-based insurance (WBI) and to a control group offered unsubsidized WBI. We find that moving from index-based to indemnity-based insurance substantially increases take-up, particularly among women and farmers in drought-prone areas, indicating that innovations in contract design can broaden coverage in inclusive ways. Insurance coverage significantly increases fertilizer use in both treatments, confirming that uninsured risk constrains agricultural investment. However, despite higher take-up, PBI increases total fertilizer use as much as WBI. Using a Heckman selection model to correct for endogenous adoption, we show that this is not only due to incentive effects but also to multidimensional selection: PBI attracts farmers who, in the absence of insurance, would have invested less in fertilizer. After adjusting for this compositional change, differences in fertilizer use per farmer enrolled in WBI and PBI are not statistically significant. We conclude that higher take-up rates of digital indemnity-based insurance may not automatically translate into proportionally larger farm investments, but since increased coverage is concentrated among the relatively more vulnerable, it may contribute to complementary objectives such as inclusivity, equity, and resilience. Contract design and targeting, therefore, remain central to effective insurance product development.

Report on visioning workshop of the Banspal Bikas Mancha (Living Lab) supporting locally led climate action, Odisha, India

This report documents a one-day Vision to Action workshop organized by Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) with support of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), held on August 18, 2025, in Banspal village, Keonjhar, Odisha. The workshop is convened as a foundation step towards establishing a Living Lab in Banspal and situated within the broader framework of the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program.

Field visit and workshop report: Defining the problem domain and identifying possible entry point for experiential learning intervention to support lantana management and landscape restoration in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, India

The management of Lantana camara, an invasive plant species, is a major challenge across India. Its rapid spread across forests and adjoining agricultural lands has negatively affected biodiversity, reduced the availability of nontimber forest products (NTFPs), and rendered areas of agricultural land uncultivable. Invasive species management has become a national priority, and is reflected in goals in India’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, as the unchecked growth of Lantana affects landscapes across the country. In the Mandla District, in Madhya Pradesh, Lantana has decreased wildlife habitats and reduced fodder availability by replacing native grasses. This affects food security and livelihoods in the area, with disproportionate impacts on women who are responsible for collecting NTFPs, fuelwood and fodder from forests. As Lantana encroaches further, women must travel longer distances and spend more time gathering forest resources, which increases risk of human or wildlife attacks. Current by-laws in place promote collective action for eradication of Lantana and evidence shows that community-based management of Lantana can lead to positive social and ecological outcomes.