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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
PARTNER PROFILE: IFPRI
In this section:
USAID Funds Agriculture Think Tank to Fight Hunger
USAID Funds Agriculture Think Tank to Fight Hunger
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For three decades, IFPRI has studied ways to meet the
world’s food needs in a sustainable manner.
Philippe Berry, IFPRI
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When farmers in Africa or aid groups in the West look for
ways to meet the food requirements of growing populations,
they often turn to a small research group based in Washington
called IFPRI—the International Food Policy Research Institute.
The center is one of the 15 branches of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)—most
of which are primarily biological research stations with fields
and laboratories for breeding improved crop varieties, developing
better production practices, and conserving soil, water, and
biodiversity resources.
Washington-based IFPRI is partly funded by USAID through
the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, the
Africa bureau, and other offices.
The center’s strength is its focus on policy and strategy,
said Peter Hazell, former director of IFPRI’s Development
Strategy and Governance Division, who is now a professor at
Imperial College London.
“We’re the guys who go to African leaders and
show them the options—we do a lot of workshops and training,”
he said. “We’re the food policy guys.”
In Ethiopia, for instance, IFPRI works with the government
to strengthen market reform processes, Hazell added.
Unfortunately, when Ethiopia ended its experiment with socialism
a few years ago, it got rid of government agricultural organizations
that distributed seed and fertilizer and purchased crops—but
it did not initially replace them with anything, Hazell said.
This led to “disaster,” he said.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund pushed for
reliance on markets rather than government agencies running
agriculture programs. But IFPRI is doing research on what
a “managed transition” from central planning to
a market economy would look like, he said.
“In most African countries, the small farmer now has
less access to fertilizer and improved seed, less credit,
and less market access because the parastatals [government
agencies] were dissolved,” Hazell said.
In its rush to push production of exportable crops, Africa
should not neglect staples such as grains and cassava, he
added.
“We need a road map” for proper agricultural development,
which would include “traders, banking, storage, and suppliers
of seed and fertilizer,” he said.
In many countries, “no one is doing” this kind
of agricultural reform, Hazell said. As a result, when there’s
a bumper crop of corn one year, prices crash. The next year,
farmers don’t plant corn.
“That’s what happened in Ethiopia,” he said.
IFPRI also identified the need for roads to allow farmers
to obtain cheap fertilizer and seed and to market their crops.
It is also working on separate strategies to assist farmers
living along roads and those away from roads.
IFPRI’s budget rose from $26 million on 2003 to $34
million in 2004. Funding comes from many countries and international
organizations.
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The majority of the world’s hungry people depend
heavily on agriculture for their food and livelihoods.
Ruth Meinzen-Dick, IFPRI
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IFPRI works closely with developing countries to support
the sound management of natural resources.
Richard Adams, IFPRI
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