POLICY RESEARCH AND STRATEGY SUPPORT PROGRAM (PRSSP) PUBLICATIONS

× In the context of rural Bangladesh, we assess whether agriculture training alone, nutrition behavior communication change (BCC) alone, combined agriculture training and nutrition BCC, or agriculture training and nutrition BCC combined with gender sensitization improve: (a) production diversity, either on household fields or through crop, livestock, or aquaculture activities carried out near the family homestead; and (b) diet diversity and the quality of household diets. All treatment arms were implemented by government employees. Implementation quality was high. No treatment increased production diversification of crops grown on fields. Treatment arms with agricultural training did increase the number of different crops grown in homestead gardens and the likelihood of any egg, dairy, or fish production but the magnitudes of these effect sizes were small. All agricultural treatment arms had, in percentage terms, large effects on measures of levels of homestead production. However, because baseline levels of production were low, the magnitude of these changes in absolute terms was modest. Nearly all treatment arms improved measures of food consumption and diet with the largest effects found when nutrition and agriculture training were combined. Relative to treatments combining agriculture and nutrition training, we find no significant impact of adding the gender sensitization on our measures of production diversity or diet quality. Interventions that combine agricultural training and nutrition BCC can improve both production diversity and diet quality, but they are not a panacea. They can, however, contribute toward better diets of rural households.

× We use a randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh to compare two models of delivering nutrition content jointly to husbands and wives: deploying female nutrition workers versus mostly male agriculture extension workers. Both approaches increased nutrition knowledge of men and women, household and individual diet quality, and women’s empowerment. Intervention effects on agriculture and nutrition knowledge, agricultural production diversity, dietary diversity, women’s empowerment, and gender parity do not significantly differ between models where nutrition workers versus agriculture extension workers provide the training. The exception is in an attitudes score, where results indicate same-sex agents may affect scores differently than opposite-sex agents. Our results suggest opposite-sex agents may not necessarily be less effective in providing training. In South Asia, where agricultural extension systems and the pipeline to those systems are male dominated, training men to deliver nutrition messages may offer a temporary solution to the shortage of fe male extension workers and offer opportunities to scale and promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture. However, in both models, we find evidence that the presence of mothers-in-law within households modifies the programs’ effectiveness on some nutrition, empowerment, and attitude measures, suggesting that accounting for other influential household members is a potential area for future programming.

× A growing body of evidence indicates that agricultural development programs can potentially improve production diversity and diet quality of poor rural households; however, less is known about which aspects of program design are effective in diverse contexts and feasible to implement at scale. We address this issue through an evaluation of the Agriculture, Gender, and Nutrition Linkages (ANGeL) project. ANGeL is a randomized controlled trial testing what combination of trainings focused on agricultural production, nutrition behavior change communication, and gender sensitization were most effective in improving production diversity and diet quality among rural farm households in Bangladesh. We find that trainings focused on agriculture improved production diversity in terms of greater production of fruits and vegetables grown on the homestead, eggs, dairy, and fish; adding trainings on nutrition and gender did not significantly change these impacts. Trainings focused on both agriculture and nutrition showed the largest impacts on diet quality, with evidence indicating that households in this arm also significantly increased consumption out of homestead production for fruits and vegetables, eggs, dairy, and fish. Findings indicate that agricultural training that promotes production of diverse, high-value, nutrient-rich foods can increase production diversity, and this can improve diet quality, but diet quality impacts are larger when agricultural training is combined with nutrition training. Relative to treatments combining agriculture and nutrition training, we find no significant impact of adding the gender sensitization on our measures of production diversity or diet quality.

× Agricultural development projects increasingly include women’s empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but efforts to evaluate their impact have been stymied by the lack of comparable measures. Moreover, the context-specificity of empowerment implies that a quantitative measure alone will be inadequate to capture the nuances of the empowerment process. The Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2), a portfolio of 13 agricultural development projects in nine countries in South Asia and Africa, developed the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and qualitative protocols for impact evaluations. Pro-WEAI covers three major types of agencies: instrumental, intrinsic, and collective. This paper synthesizes the results of 11 mixed-methods evaluations to assess these projects’ empowerment impacts. The projects implemented the pro-WEAI and its associated qualitative protocols in their impact evaluations. Our synthesis finds mixed, and mostly null impacts on aggregate indicators of women’s empowerment, with positive impacts more likely in the South Asian, rather than African, cases. There were more significant impacts on instrumental agency indicators and collective agency indicators, reflecting the group-based approaches used. We found few significant impacts on intrinsic agency indicators, except for those projects that intentionally addressed gender norms. Quantitative analysis does not show an association between the types of strategies that projects implemented and their impacts, except for capacity building strategies. This finding reveals the limitations of quantitative analysis, given the small number of projects involved. The qualitative studies provide more nuance and insight: some base level of empowerment and forms of agency may be necessary for women to participate in project activities, to benefit or further increase their empowerment. Our results highlight the need for projects to focus specifically on empowerment, rather than assume that projects aiming to reach and benefit women automatically empower them. Our study also shows the value of both a common metric to compare empowerment impacts across projects and contexts and qualitative work to understand and contextualize these impacts.

× We use a randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh to compare two models of delivering nutrition content jointly to husbands and wives: deploying female nutrition workers versus mostly male agriculture extension workers. Both approaches increased nutrition knowledge of men and women, household and individual diet quality, and women’s empowerment. Intervention effects on agriculture and nutrition knowledge, agricultural production diversity, dietary diversity, women’s empowerment, and gender parity do not significantly differ between models where nutrition workers versus agriculture extension workers provide the training. The exception is in an attitudes score, where results indicate same-sex agents may affect scores differently than opposite-sex agents. Our results suggest opposite-sex agents may not necessarily be less effective in providing training. In South Asia, where agricultural extension systems and the pipeline to those systems are male-dominated, training men to deliver nutrition messages may offer a temporary solution to the shortage of female extension workers and offer opportunities to scale promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture.

× Feed the Future seeks to sustainably reduce global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition by helping partner countries boost agriculture-led growth, resilience, and nutrition. Program efforts are designed to impact the population in Zones of Influence (ZOI) in Feed the Future target countries. The ZOI is the targeted sub-national regions and districts where the program intends to achieve the greatest household- and individual-level impacts on poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. Progress in achieving Feed the Future’s objectives is tracked using population-based performance indicators collected at baseline then periodically thereafter.
The purpose of the Bangladesh Feed the Future Phase 2 ZOI 2018/2019 Baseline Survey, referred to as the Feed the Future Bangladesh ZOI Baseline Survey 2018/2019 throughout this report, is to provide the U.S. Government interagency partners, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS), USAID/Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh, and development partners with information on the current status of the Feed the Future ZOI-level population-based survey indicators.

× On September 18, 2020, USAID requested IFPRI to conduct 15 stakeholder consultations on three thematic areas across five districts in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI) and Zone of Resilience (ZOR): Barishal, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka, Jashore, and Khulna. The thematic areas are: (1) Increased Access to Finance, (2) Commercialization of Oilseeds and Pulses, and (3) Commercialization of Agricultural Research and Biotechnology. IFPRI agreed to conduct these stakeholder consultations and, on October 21, 2020, USAID approved IFPRI’s Commercialization of Oilseeds and Pulses concept note.

× From December 6-10, 2020, USAID organized and IFPRI facilitated five virtual stakeholder consultation workshops on agricultural research and biotechnology, bringing together relevant stakeholders involved in crop and non-crop agriculture from Barishal, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka, Jashore, and Khulna districts in southern Bangladesh. This format aimed to capture the views and perceptions of a range of relevant actors on the status, opportunities and challenges, and recommendations for improving agricultural research and biotechnology. This report presents the subjective views of participants who are affected by and have a stake in these discussions, from value chain actors who have had challenges cultivating certain varieties and raising certain breeds due to climate-related challenges to researchers who are developing new varieties and breeds accounting for these ground-level challenges. Although the authors have substantiated parts of this report with primary and secondary data sources, the major thrust of this report is to communicate perspectives as they were framed during the workshops. Although stakeholder responses reflect varying knowledge levels of biotechnology among participants, some of which may be convoluted or inaccurate, this report preserves the diversity of stakeholder input as an honest reflection of the opinions received.

× In Bangladesh, social protection programs have the potential to uplift the most vulnerable out of poverty. Until recently, however, these programs have had little impact on nutrition. Results from a randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative – provides the proof of concept that combining social safety net transfers with nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) can significantly improve household food security and child nutrition, and these impacts can be sustained over time.

× Onion is a key ingredient in most Bangladeshi meals, so its sudden price spurt in the domestic market in early-July 2013 raised deep concerns among the people and the government. While such a price surge hits low-income consumers the hardest, it can also become an important political issue. For example, in India, onion prices were regarded as the decisive factor in the 1998 state elections in Delhi and Rajasthan and were responsible for bringing down the central government in 1980. Following the 2013 price hike, a situation analysis of the onion price surge was conducted with a view to derive policy recommendations for onion price stabilization in the country. The analysis of onion price situation was based on information collected from a number of sources.

× Securing Food for All in Bangladesh presents an array of research that collectively address four broad issues: (1) agricultural technology adoption; (2) input use and agricultural productivity; (3) food security and output market; and (4) poverty, food security, and women’s empowerment. The fifteen chapters of the book address diverse aspects within these four themes.
Access to sufficient food by all people at all times to meet their dietary needs is a matter of critical importance. Despite declining arable agricultural land, Bangladesh has made commendable progress in boosting domestic food production. The growth in overall food production has been keeping ahead of population growth, resulting in higher per capita availability of food over time. In the early 1970s, Bangladesh was a food-deficit country with a population of about 75 million. Today, the population is 165 million, and the country is now self-sufficient in rice production, which has tripled over the past three decades. Along with enhanced food production, increased income has improved people’s access to food. Furthermore, nutritional outcomes have improved significantly.
Nevertheless, the challenges to food and nutrition security remain formidable. Future agricultural growth and food and nutrition security are threatened by population growth, worsening soil fertility, diminishing access to land and other scarce natural resources, increasing vulnerability of crop varieties to pests and diseases, and persistent poverty leading to poor access to food. In addition, the impacts of climate change—an increase in the incidence of natural disasters, sea intrusion, and salinity—will exacerbate food and nutrition insecurity in the coming decades if corrective measures are not taken. Aligned with this context, the authors of the book explore policy options and strategies for developing agriculture and improving food security in Bangladesh.
Securing Food for All in Bangladesh, with its breadth and scope, will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving people’s livelihoods in Bangladesh.

× Large-scale government interventions in cereal markets supported by public stocks have been a central part of food policy in the Indian sub-content since the days of British colonial India. Following the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, during which an estimated three million people died of hungerrelated causes, the colonial government instituted a system of government sales and distribution of cereals designed to help ensure minimum food consumption for poor households (Sen 1982). Public distribution systems continued in both India and Pakistan following independence in 1947. The famine conditions in 1972-74 that followed the liberation war and Bangladesh’s independence in December 1971 strongly reinforced the perceived need for major public interventions to ensure food security (see Ahmed, Haggblade, and Chowdhury 2000).

× We implemented a cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of genetically modified eggplant (Bt brinjal) in Bangladesh. Our two primary outcomes were changes in yield and in pesticide costs. Cultivation of Bt brinjal raises yields by 3,564 kg/ha. This statistically significant impact is equivalent to a 51% increase relative to the control group. There is a statistically significant fall in pesticide costs, 7,175 Taka per hectare (85 USD per ha), a 37.5% reduction. Yield increases arise because Bt farmers harvest more eggplant and because fewer fruits are discarded because they are damaged. Bt brinjal farmers sell more eggplant and receive a higher price for the output they sell while incurring lower input costs, resulting in a 128% increase in net revenues. Bt brinjal farmers used smaller quantities of pesticides and sprayed less frequently. Bt brinjal reduced the toxicity of pesticides as much as 76%. Farmers growing Bt brinjal and who had pre‐existing chronic conditions consistent with pesticide poisoning were 11.5% points less likely to report a symptom of pesticide poisoning and were less likely to incur cash medical expenses to treat these symptoms. Our results are robust to changes in model specification and adjustment for multiple hypothesis testing. We did not find evidence of heterogeneous effects by farmer age, schooling, or land cultivated. Bt brinjal is a publicly developed genetically modified organism that conveys significant productivity and income benefits while reducing the use of pesticides damaging to human and ecological health.

× The importance of women’s roles for nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects is increasingly recognized, yet little is known about whether such projects improve women’s empowerment and gender equality. We study the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, which was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial by the Government of Bangladesh. The project’s treatment arms included agricultural training, nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), and gender sensitization trainings delivered to husbands and wives together – with these components combined additively, such that the impact of gender sensitization could be distinguished from that of agriculture and nutrition trainings. Empowerment was measured using the internationally-validated project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and attitudes regarding gender roles were elicited from both men and women, to explore potentially gender-transformative impacts. Our study finds that ANGeL increased both women’s and men’s empowerment, raised the prevalence of households achieving gender parity, and led to small improvements in the gender attitudes of both women and men. We find significant increases in women’s empowerment scores and empowerment status from all treatment arms but with no significant differences across these. We find no evidence of unintended impacts on workloads and inconclusive evidence around impacts on intimate partner violence. Our results also suggest some potential benefits of bundling nutrition and gender components with an agricultural development intervention; however, many of these benefits seem to be driven by bundling nutrition with agriculture. While we cannot assess the extent to which including men and women within the same treatment arms contributed to our results, it is plausible that the positive impacts of all treatment arms on women’s empowerment outcomes may have arisen from implementation modalities that provided information to both husbands and wives when they were together. The role of engaging men and women jointly in interventions is a promising area for future research.

× Public procurement of foodgrains in Bangladesh has significant implications for production and public foodgrain stock. Boro is the main rice crop cultivated in Bangladesh. During the 2019 boro harvest season, farmers in Bangladesh, particularly smallholder farmers, were adversely affected by low paddy prices. This paper assesses to what extent boro farmers could sell their paddy to the government, evaluates the efficacy of direct paddy procurement from farmers and examines options for improving Bangladesh’s foodgrain procurement system. Relevant actors in the boro paddy procurement system were inter- viewed, including boro-growing farm households, rice millers, traders, and government officials. We have also conducted a study in West Bengal, India, to explore alternative paddy procurement systems. Using evidence from Bangladesh and West Bengal, we propose two policy options for rice procurement in Bangladesh. First, when the paddy price is low and does not cover farmers’ production cost per unit, the government can purchase paddy directly from farmers to provide necessary price support. Second, when the paddy price is high, the government can purchase rice from the market through open tender to build or replenish public foodgrain stocks.

× FAO Bangladesh coordinated this Second rapid assessment of food and nutrition security in the context of COVID-19 in Bangladesh to understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the responses to it, on food and nutrition security in Bangladesh. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and WorldFish, made significant contributions to this combined assessment. The assessment was completed in 30 days, including information collection, report drafting, peer review and finalisation. FAO and CGIAR experts collected the information mostly through telephone interviews with government counterparts, private sector actors, producer associations and other key informants.