The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is pleased to announce that Steven Were Omamo has been appointed IFPRI’s Director for Africa. Dr. Omamo will also continue to serve as IFPRI’s Director of the Development Strategies and Governance Unit (DSG). Based in IFPRI’s Nairobi, Kenya office, Omamo joined IFPRI in October 2024. “We are delighted that Were has been appointed to
By Valeria Piñeiro, Yostina Girgies, Fernando Martín, Juan Pablo Gianatiempo, and Joseph Glauber April 7, 2025 Over the past 10 years, Peru has grown to become the second-largest producer of blueberries in the world after the United States and the world’s largest exporter. How did a country that produced almost no blueberries as late as 2010 manage this feat? The answer lies in a
By Joseph Glauber, Valeria Piñeiro, and Juan Pablo Gianatiempo April 8, 2025 First in a blog series examining the potential consequences of the newly proposed U.S. tariffs for global agrifood trade. Citing the persistent U.S. trade deficit and what he considers unfair practices by other countries, President Donald Trump declared April 2 “Liberation Day” and announced a sweeping new set of supplemental tariffs on
By Suresh Babu and Nandita Srivastava April 10, 2025 Food systems around the world face growing challenges. They must be transformed to sustainably feed a growing global population and made more resilient to shocks from extreme weather to conflict. Efforts on those fronts are increasingly interlinked—and depend on well-targeted local interventions. Those in turn will depend on effective national extension services operating
By Joseph Glauber, Juan Pablo Gianatiempo, and Valeria Piñeiro April 21, 2025 Second in a blog series examining the potential consequences of the recently-proposed U.S. tariffs for global agrifood trade. Read the first post here. The Trump administration’s ever-changing trade policies are now focused on China, in what looks to be a replay of the 2018-2019 U.S.-China trade war that resulted in large losses
By Agnes Quisumbing, Jordan Kyle, Katrina Kosec, and Catherine Ragasa April 25, 2025 Research shows that women play pivotal roles in farming—across value chains, and in food systems as a whole. With harmful effects of climate change, conflict, forced migration, and other problems on the rise, many women around the world find themselves in increasingly fragile settings—creating new challenges in efforts to achieve
By Yunyi Zhou, Wei Zhang, and Kevin Chen April 30, 2025 Reconciling and harmonizing rural development, food security, equity and social inclusion, and conservation remains challenging for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as they work toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Payment for environmental services (PES) offers a promising, market-based approach to these challenges, helping to encourage ecosystem service (ES) provision
By James Allen IV May 5, 2025 In the wake of a series of recent crises that drove up global hunger and food insecurity, the world remains far off track in meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2)—ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Now, in a chaotic global environment of still more crises and complications, including cuts in official development assistance, what is