Suchergebnisse

The most recent (2010-211) drought in the arid and semiarid lowlands (ASAL) of the Horn of Africa has rendered over 13 million people in need of food, and caused a devastating famine in southern Somalia. The drought has also raised concerns that pastoralist livelihoods in this region are no longer viable or sustainable, thereby justifying strategies that aim to sedentarize and diversify these livelihoods. Countering this view are advocates of wholesale protection of pastoralist livelihoods. Yet despite these very contrasting views on economic development in the region, very little research directly addresses this big picture question of where public resources should be invested. In this paper we argue that both economic theory and the existing evidence base warrant a more balanced development strategy involving movement out of pastoralism (intersectoral transformation), modernization of pastoralism (intrasectoral transformation), and cross-cutting transformations of the demographic, social, and political structure of ASAL populations. We then explore the empirical basis for balancing investments across these kinds of transformations. While the available evidence base is weak in some respects, we find that most nonpastoralist livelihoods in ASAL yield lower incomes than pastoralism, with the exception of urban livelihoods and irrigated farming. ; Non-PR ; GRP32; IFPRI1 ; DSGD; PHND; EPTD

Agricultural development strategies delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. They are usually put forward by individual countries based on assessments of national needs. Seldom are attempts made to identify strategic priorities for agricultural development that cut across national boundaries. This gap is perhaps not surprising—organizations mandated to develop and implement regional agricultural development programs are rare. Although the gap may be understandable, it is also troubling. This report helps to fill that gap for eastern and central Africa (ECA), focusing on Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Recent trends and the current performance of agriculture in these countries expose a region progressively less able to meet the needs of its burgeoning population. The analysis. suggests that to avoid the bleak growth and poverty outcomes implied by business-as-usual in agriculture, ECA governments must invest in combinations of measures that (1) spur productivity growth, focusing on subsectors with high demand within ECA; (2) strengthen agricultural markets; (3) enhance linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors; and (4) exploit opportunities for regional cooperation. ; PR ; IFPRI1; ECAPAPA; GRP38; DCA ; EPTD; DSGD

IFPRI3; ISI; CRP7; HarvestChoice ; EPTD; WCAO ; PR ; Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

The first decade of the 21st century has seen several harbingers of a troubled future for global food security. The food price spike of 2008, with its consequent food riots and resulting political changes in several countries, awoke the world's leaders to the re-emergence of this threat to human well-being and social harmony. The excessive heat and drought in Russia that led to the 2010 wildfires and grain embargo, as well as the unprecedented floods in Pakistan, signal more trouble ahead. But the warning signs could already be seen in the 1990s, as the long-term decline in the number of the world's poor and hungry stalled, and those numbers began to rise. The seeds for these challenges, both for good and ill, were planted along with the Green Revolution crops in the mid-1960s. Dramatic increases in food production and land productivity led to complacency about the remaining challenges ahead, resulting in reduced public sector investments in agricultural productivity. Population numbers continue their march towards a likely 9 billion by 2050, while higher incomes in hitherto poor countries will lead to increased demand, which in turn puts additional pressures on sustainable food production.

The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) was developed at IFPRI at the beginning of the 1990s to address a lack of long-term vision and consensus among policy-makers and researchers about the actions that are necessary to feed the world in the future, reduce poverty, and protect the natural resource base. In 1993, these same long-term global concerns launched the 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Initiative which created the opportunity for further development of the IMPACT model. In 1995 the first results using IMPACT were published as a 2020 Vision discussion paper: Global Food Projections to 2020: Implications for Investment (Rosegrant et al. 1995) in which the effects of population, investment, and trade scenarios on food security and nutrition status, especially in developing countries, were analyzed. IMPACT continues to serve as the basis for research examining the linkage between the production of key food commodities and food demand and security at the national level in the context of scenarios of future change. Studies focus on regional issues, commodity-level analyses, and cross-cutting thematic issues. IMPACT is also embedded in a variety of major global assessments to complement interdisciplinary, scenario-based work on the future of food supply and demand. The first comprehensive set of results for IMPACT were published in the book Global Food Projections to 2020 (Rosegrant et al. 2001). These projections—which were presented in 2001 at the IFPRI-sponsored conference in Bonn entitled: Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020—are presented with details on the demand system and other underlying data used in the projections work, and cover both global and regionally-focused projections. A complete list of the research published using the IMPACT modeling framework is provided in Appendix 1, including reports for international organizations, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the FAO, and national governments. NOTE: The 2008 version is superceded by this 2012 version, and the 2008 version is retained for archival purposes and researching using this model should use the documentation from 2012. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP38; HarvestChoice ; EPTD