BY JAWOO KOO, CLAUDIA RINGLER, ANIRUDDHA GHOSH AND CARLO AZZARRI India’s devastating second wave of COVID-19 is adding unprecedented numbers of new cases every day, and it seems to be spreading more to rural areas. This trend poses serious challenges for efforts to contain the disease, as rural areas may have heightened pandemic vulnerabilities. It is hard to assess the urban-rural
BY FRANCISCO CEBALLOS, MANUEL HERNANDEZ AND CYNTHIA PAZ Global patterns and local variations of COVID-19 impacts on income, food security, and dietary diversity are gradually emerging. In this post, Francisco Ceballos, Manuel Hernandez, and Cynthia Paz document these effects on the vulnerable population of the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Their findings track those in many places, including greater income losses
BY CATHERINE RAGASA, ISABEL LAMBRECHT AND MICHAEL WANG While COVID-19 transmission dynamics and impacts have been different in rural and urban areas, big impacts on rural incomes and livelihoods have been observed. In this post, Catherine Ragasa, Isabel Lambrecht and Michael Wang assess income impacts on landed and landless rural people in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone, comparing bi-monthly surveys during the pandemic to pre-pandemic
BY EUGENIO DÍAZ-BONILLA One of the central aims of the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) is focusing global attention on how transforming our food systems can contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals—particularly Goal 2 and its key component of eliminating hunger by 2030. The idea of a global fund dedicated to eliminating hunger has been put forward by several international leaders, such as
BY YING VISSER AND MARIËLLE KARSSENBERG IFPRI’s recently-released 2021 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) is published at a time when the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to grow. With the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit set for September, the global policy focus is on transforming food systems after COVID-19. An April 15 virtual event organized by IFPRI, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Netherlands
BY XINSHEN DIAO,THOMAS REARDON, ADAM KENNEDY AND JESSICA WALLACH While urbanization is shrinking rural populations in many parts of the world, rural areas, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara, will continue to be home to substantial numbers of people—and the livelihoods of many of them depend on small farms. These small farms play essential roles in national food systems and with
BY EMILY SCHMIDT AND PAUL DOROSH In general, the COVID-19 pandemic has had only modest impacts on food availability but greater consequences for food affordability. During the food price crisis of 2007-8, rice prices increased dramatically in rice-importing countries such as Papua New Guinea (PNG) when rice-exporting countries imposed export bans. In this post, Emily Schmidt and Paul Dorosh model different
BY JEMIMAH NJUKI, HAZEL MALAPIT, SARAH EISSLER AND JESSICA WALLACH A large volume of research has been produced in the last few decades on the roles that women play in food systems, the constraints they face, and how they can play a key role in agricultural transformation. There is evidence that achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems