The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is an international agricultural research center founded in 1975 to improve the understanding of national agricultural and food policies to promote the adoption of innovations in agricultural technology. Additionally, IFPRI was meant to shed more light on the role of agricultural and rural development in the broader development pathway of a country. The mission of IFPRI is to provide research-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition.
IFPRI carries out food policy research and disseminates it through hundreds of publications, bulletins, conferences, and other initiatives. IFPRI was organized as a District of Columbia non-profit, non-stock corporation on March 5, 1975, and its first research bulletin was produced in February 1976. IFPRI operates in more than 50 countries with offices in several developing countries, including China, Ethiopia, and India, and has research staff working in many more countries around the world. Most of the research takes place in developing countries in Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia.
IFPRI is part of a network of international research institutes funded in part by the CGIAR, which in turn is funded by governments, private businesses and foundations, and the World Bank.
Scope
IFPRI's institutional strategy rests on three pillars: research, capacity strengthening, and policy communication.
Research areas
Research topics have included low crop and animal productivity, and environmental degradation, water management, fragile lands, property rights, collective action, sustainable intensification of agricultural production, the impact of climate change on poor farmers, the problems and opportunities of biotechnology, food security, micronutrient malnutrition, microfinance programs, urban food security, resource allocation within households, and school feeding in low-income countries.
Gender and development
One major area of research is gender and development, One study, conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, looked at the relative productivity of plots of farm land controlled by men compared to plots controlled by women. They found that the majority of resources are devoted to plots controlled by men, but if resources were diverted to plots controlled by women productivity could increase by as much as 20%. In another study in Kenya, where women get almost no education, they determined that if women farmers were provided one year of primary education, maize production could increase by as much as 24%.
Studies conducted in Egypt and Mozambique found that the education level of adult females in a household is more important than the education level of adult males to bring a household out of poverty. Increasing the education of mothers to completion of primary school decreased the percentage of households below the poverty line by 33.7%. Related studies in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia and South Africa found that when women controlled the finances children benefited. The funds were more likely to be spent on children's clothes, education and general well-being for both girls and boys.
Climate change
One of the areas of research for the IFPRI is the effects of climate change on developing countries.
In 2011, IFPRI published the results of a study in The Republic of Yemen predicting the economic outcome of climate change in urban and rural Yemeni communities. The study predicted that the country's GDP would drop, but that agricultural GDP would increase. It predicted that flooding would cause farmers to lose some crops, but agriculture in general would benefit. The group expected to suffer the most would be rural non-farmers. In the long term, climate change was predicted to damage food security and cause a decrease in household GDP.
In December 2011, the IFPRI published a report sent to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) highlighting the need for research into agricultural systems likely to be affected by climate change. They highlighted 12 that they suggested should be high research priority:
Malnutrition
IFPRI has done extensive research into areas related to malnutrition. They have conducted research all over the world on various issues that arise from or cause malnutrition. They have looked at HIV and Malaria and how malnutrition affects the epidemiology of these diseases. They have looked at the effects of childhood malnutrition on adult health. They have looked at the potential benefits of biotech crops on childhood nutrition, and the effects of vitamin supplements in general.