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PR, IFPRI3; IFPRIOA; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; G Cross-cutting gender theme; ISI, Development Strategies and Governance (DSG); Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation Strategies, Little is known about the effects of urbanization on women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). The scarcity of empirical studies on this relationship can be partly attributed to the lack of an objective measure of urbanization levels. In this study, we investigate the effects of urbanization on Ethiopian women’s attitudes toward IPV using four continuous measures of urbanization: nightlight intensity, distance to urban areas, total urban area within a 10-km radius, and an urbanization index. These measures are defined from satellite-based nighttime light intensity and multispectral sensor data. We find that despite a generally strong positive association between urbanization and progressive attitudes among women toward IPV, some stages of urbanization show a more significant association than others. The heterogeneities in the effect of all urbanization measures on women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence further show that the effects of urbanization measures are sharply heterogeneous across wealth indicator terciles. While we find that urbanization measures are associated with an overall decrease in the justification of IPV, the effects are higher and stronger for women in the upper and middle wealth terciles compared to the lowest wealth tercile. Initially less-privileged women gain little from urbanization in the attitudes toward IPV, resulting in increased inequality in women’s empowerment in the short and medium term.

Non-PR, 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; IFPRI1; MaSSP, Development Strategies and Governance (DSG); Transformation Strategies; Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM), El Niño is a phase in an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every 2 to 7 years and typically lasts between 9 months and 2 years. El Niño affects the global weather patterns, resulting in above-average precipitation in some places and droughts in others. Malawi and its neighbors typically experience drier than usual weather during El Niño, which often leads to poor growing conditions and below-average harvests.

PR, IFPRI3; CRP3.2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply, Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Transformation Strategies, CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), The lack of timely, high-resolution data on agricultural production is a major challenge in developing countries where such information can guide the allocation of scarce resources for food security, agricultural investment and other objectives. While much research has suggested that remote sensing can potentially help to address these gaps, few studies have indicated the immediate potential for large-scale estimations over both time and space. In this study we described a machine learning approach to estimate smallholder maize yield in Ethiopia, using well-measured and broadly distributed ground truth data and freely available spatiotemporal covariates from remote sensing. A neural networks model outperforms other algorithms in our study. Importantly, our work indicates that a model developed and calibrated on a previous year’s data can be used to reasonably estimate maize yield in the subsequent year. Our study suggests the feasibility of developing national programs for the routine generation of broad-scale, high-resolution estimates of smallholder maize yield, including seasonal forecasts, on the basis of machine learning algorithms and well-measured ground control data and currently existing time series satellite data.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; SSSP; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance, Development Strategies and Governance (DSG); Transformation Strategies; Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM), The confrontation in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had persisted for months before escalating into an armed conflict on April 15th, 2023. Besides the severe humanitarian catastrophe, the war has disrupted access to power, water, health services, and banking services while also disrupting access to markets triggering considerable scarcity of goods and services. The conflict has destroyed key infrastructure, constraining domestic and international trade and disrupting production activities and supply chains. In this paper, we utilize satellite data to provide a swift analysis of how the conflict has changed patterns of economic activity, which are bound to have severe implications on food security in Sudan. We also describe how remote sensing and data collection methods can be deployed to monitor economic activities amidst armed conflicts.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; SSSP; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; EgyptSSP, Development Strategies and Governance (DSG); Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Transformation Strategies, The confrontation in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had persisted for months before escalating into an armed conflict on April 15th, 2023. Besides the severe humanitarian catastrophe, the war has disrupted access to power, water, health services, and banking services while also disrupting access to markets triggering considerable scarcity of goods and services. The conflict has destroyed key infrastructure, constraining domestic and international trade and disrupting production activities and supply chains. In this paper, we utilize satellite data to provide a swift analysis of how the conflict has changed patterns of economic activity, which are bound to have severe implications on food security in Sudan. We also describe how remote sensing and data collection methods can be deployed to monitor economic activities amidst armed conflicts.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP2; CRP5; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; Capacity Strengthening, Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation Strategies; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), Common pool resources provide important socioeconomic and ecological benefits for local communities and beyond, with around 2.5-3 billion people depending on commons for their livelihoods and other needs globally. In India, common lands constitute around a quarter of the country’s landmass, help meet the subsistence and livelihood needs of at least 350 million people and are of social and cultural significance to rural communities, as well as providing ecosystem services that benefit wider society. Despite these vital contributions, India’s commons have been facing widespread degradation, and policymakers tend to perceive some commons as “wastelands” because their true extent and value is not known. This study contributes to improved understanding of the magnitude and vitality of commons for rural communities, focusing on land-based commons in India. We provide a national assessment of the spatial extent and usage of common lands across districts, using publicly available spatial datasets and 2011 Census of India data and Household Census data. We further examine the spatial overlap between common lands and officially recognized protected areas to shine light on the possible locations where sustainable management or restoration of commons can potentially add value to conservation, in addition to benefiting local communities. Our results show that common lands are spread out spatially across the country and are intertwined, with more than one type of commons often present within the same district. Further, communities, especially poor, marginalized and indigenous communities such as Scheduled Tribe rely on forest commons, barren lands, pastures and culturable wastelands for their livelihoods, including for extraction of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for housing and cooking, grazing livestock, among others. Common lands and the communities that depend on them also often live in proximity to or are surrounded by officially recognized protected areas. Our study poi

PR, 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; IFPRI3; ISI, CPA; EPTD, The severity of the climate challenge requires a change in the climate response, from an incremental to a more far-reaching and radical transformative one. There is also a need to avoid maladaptation whereby responses to climate risk inadvertently reinforce vulnerability, exposure and risk for some sections of society. Innovative technological interventions are critical but enabling social, institutional and governance factors are the actual drivers of the transformative process. Bringing about this transformation requires inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and the embracing of social equity. In this Perspective, we unpack what this means for agricultural research and, based on our collective experience, we map out a research agenda that weaves different research components into a holistic and transformative one. We do not offer best practice, but rather reflections on how agricultural research can more readily contribute to transformative adaptation, along with the personal and practical challenges of designing and implementing such an agenda.

Non-PR, 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; IFPRI5, EPTD, Farming Systems Analysis (FSA) is commonly used in CGIAR to assess ‘what works where, and for who?’. The findings are used to prioritize tailored/context-specific interventions and target investments for greater impact. An assessment of seven new CGIAR initiatives showed us that FSA is employed in a similar way across these initiatives, open ing up avenues for strong collaboration and sharing of data, methods and results to achieve better synergies than we have done in the past.

Non-PR, IFPRI5; DCA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply, EPTD, Globally, the commons provide important ecosystem functions and services and contribute towards sustainable development and human population. About 2.5 billion people depend on these commons for many material and non-material benefits and to support and improve their livelihoods. However, the contribution of the commons to the smallholder farmers and the economy are not very clear. Quantitative analysis of the contribution of ecosystem services will help to develop policies to better support their management and allocate resources to protect them. In this study, we assess the carbon storage and sequestration of the commons in the Thoria watershed, India using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model. InVEST is a suite of spatially explicit models for evaluating trade-offs associated with land-use induced ecosystem service changes, developed by the partners of the Natural Capital Project. The InVEST Carbon Storage and Sequestration model uses maps of land use along with stocks in carbon pools to estimate the amount of carbon currently stored in a landscape or the amount of carbon sequestered over time. Aboveground biomass comprises all living plant material above the soil (e.g., bark, trunks, branches, leaves). The model maps carbon storage densities to LCLU rasters which may include classes such as forest, pasture, or agricultural land. The carbon stocking contents of over a hundred samples are measured in the field among major land cover types. The average of carbon stocking values is used and assigned to designated land cover types. The LCL U map is developed by using a machine learning algorithm with Landsat 7 imageries and ground truth points collected by the local collaborators. The model summarizes results into raster outputs of storage, sequestration, and value, as well as aggregate totals. The ground truth data and remotely sensed data are used to calibrate the parameters of the model inputs. We also perform two scenario a

PR, IFPRI3; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; CRP7, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Excess agricultural nitrogen, mainly from manure and chemical fertilizers, is a primary source of nutrient pollution and presents serious environmental threats to natural ecosystems and human health. Improvements in nitrogen-use efficiency in crop production are critical for addressing the triple challenge of food insecurity, environmental degradation, and climate change. Approaches such as sustainable intensification that stress technological innovations have received the most attention. But science-based cropland use planning, a promising complementary approach, has so far been largely overlooked. Here we develop a spatially integrated economic-ecological modeling method to assess this previously unexplored potential for improving the economic-environmental performance of crop production by examining the seasonal and spatial implications of cropland and fertilizer use in Bangladesh. In doing so, we aim to make the modeling method accessible to researchers and practitioners interested in achieving the dual goal of food production and environmental sustainability for countries that are characterized by seasonal and spatial variations in crop mix and cropping practices.

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP5, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), This article examines the effect of remittance income on deforestation in Nepal during 2001–2010 using satellite-based land use data and a nationwide household survey. Results indicate that remittance income reduced deforestation by 4.2 percentage points, accounting for almost 12% of deforestation during this period. An additional one-thousand-Rupee increase in average household annual remittance income reduced the ward-level deforestation by ~0.435 percentage points. There is no evidence that remittances induced expansion of agricultural land or stimulated demand for forest products. Instead, remittances contributed to the shift of households’ demand for timber and fuelwood toward non-wood alternatives for housing construction and cooking.

Non-PR, IFPRI2; Prioritizing agricultural investments; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all, EPTD, Africa is experiencing a rapid growth in urban population with a billion more people expected to live in cities by 2050. The extent to which urbanization contributes to improvements in the welfare of households and individuals depends on whether it is accompanied by the creation of remunerative employment opportunities and investments on essential infrastructure and services. Specific to child nutrition, urbanization can improve nutrition through its effects on the immediate and underlying determinants that include dietary and nutrient intake, diseases, household food security, environmental sanitation, and access to health services. The direction and strength of the association between urbanization and child undernutrition is therefore an empirical matter that largely depends on the type of urban settlements. This study examines linkages between urbanization and child undernutrition in Burkina Faso. Nutrition data are obtained from the Burkina Faso Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) con-ducted in 1998/99, 2003, and 2010. Nutritional outcomes of children 0-59 months old are measured using height-for-age z-score (HAZ), weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), and weight-for-age z-score (WAZ). Instead of relying on a binary urban-rural classification available in the DHS data, we construct two continuous indicators of urbanization based on remotely sensed data ‒ the size of urban area within 10 kilometers radius around the DHS cluster (urban extent) and the distance between the child’s DHS cluster and the boundary of the nearest urban settlement (remoteness).

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP4; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; Transform Nutrition West Africa, PHND; A4NH; EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Les pays à revenu faible et intermédiaire (PRFI), notamment en Afrique subsaharienne, font face à une « nouvelle réalité nutritionnelle » (Popkin, Corvalan, and Grummer-Strawn 2020) appelée le double fardeau de la malnutrition, où les enfants de moins de cinq ans (U5) et les femmes en âge de procréer (FAP) continuent de faire face à des taux élevés de malnutrition alors que, dans le même temps, les taux de surpoids et d’obésité au sein de ces populations sont en augmentation (Development initiatives 2020).

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP4; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; Transform Nutrition West Africa, PHND; A4NH; EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including in Africa south of the Sahara, face a “new nutrition reality” (Popkin, Corvalan, and Grummer-Strawn 2020) referred to as the double burden of malnutrition, where children under five years of age (U5s) and women of reproductive age (WRA) continue to experience high rates of undernutrition while, at the same time, the rates of overweight and obesity in these populations are on the rise (Development initiatives 2020).

Non-PR, IFPRI5, EPTD

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP5; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), The intensification of crop production has been identified as one of the major drivers of environmental degradation. While significant advances could still be made with more widespread adoption of sustainable intensification technologies that address the agronomic efficiency of nitrogen fertilizers, the dynamic use of agricultural land across seasons and associated crop-specific responses to fertilizer applications has so far been largely overlooked. This paper explores the potential for improving the economic-environmental performance of crop production through spatially integrated modeling and optimization, as applied to Bangladesh. Results show that per-billion-Taka nitrogen loss from soil would decline by 83% from the baseline level through factoring in crop-specific, seasonal and spatial variations in crop nitrogen-use efficiency and nitrogen transport. The approach should complement other policy analysis and decision-support tools to assess alternative options for maximizing the positive outcomes of nitrogen fertilizers with regard to farm income and food security, while maintaining environmental sustainability.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP2; ESSP; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; G Cross-cutting gender theme, DSGD; EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), Little is known about the impacts of urbanization on women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). The scarcity of empirical studies on this relationship can be partly attributed to the lack of an objective measure of urbanization levels. In this study, we investigate the effects of urbanization on both women’s attitudes toward IPV using three continuous measures of urbanization: nightlight intensity, distance to urban areas, and total urban area within a 10-km radius. These measures are defined from satellite-based nighttime-light-intensity and multispectralsensor data. We find that despite a generally strong positive association between urbanization and progressive attitudes among women toward IPV, some stages of urbanization show a more significant association than others. Such nonlinear relationships are apparent in all estimations and across different measurements of urbanization. The heterogeneities in the effect of urbanization on women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence further show that the effects of urbanization are sharply heterogeneous across wealth indicator terciles. While we find that urbanization is associated with an overall decrease in the acceptance of IPV, the effect is mostly concentrated in higher wealth terciles. For women in lower wealth terciles, urbanization is either insignificant or even associated with an increase in the acceptance of IPV.

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP3.2, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), Low crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa are associated with low fertilizer use. To better understand patterns of, and opportunities for, fertilizer use, location specific fertilizer price data may be relevant. We compiled local market price data for urea fertilizer, a source of inorganic nitrogen, in 1729 locations in eighteen countries in two regions (West and East Africa) from 2010–2018 to understand patterns in the spatial variation in fertilizer prices. The average national price was lowest in Ghana (0.80 USD kg-1), Kenya (0.97 USD kg-1), and Nigeria (0.99 USD kg-1). Urea was most expensive in three landlocked countries (Burundi: 1.51, Uganda: 1.49, and Burkina Faso: 1.49 USD kg-1). Our study uncovers considerable spatial variation in fertilizer prices within African countries. We show that in many countries this variation can be predicted for unsampled locations by fitting models of prices as a function of longitude, latitude, and additional predictor variables that capture aspects of market access, demand and environmental conditions. Predicted within-country urea price variation (as a fraction of the median price) was particularly high in Kenya (0.77–1.12), Nigeria (0.83–1.34), Senegal (0.73–1.40), Tanzania (0.90–1.29) and Uganda (0.93–1.30), but much lower in Burkina Faso (0.96–1.04), Burundi (0.95–1.05), and Togo (0.94–1.05). The correlation coefficient of the country level models was between 0.17 to 0.83 (mean 0.52) and the RMSE varies from 0.005 to 0.188 (mean 0.095). In 10 countries, predictions were at least 25% better than a null-model that assumes no spatial variation. Our work indicates new opportunities for incorporating spatial variation in prices into efforts to understand the profitability of agricultural technologies across rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Non-PR, IFPRI; EgyptSSP; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies, DSGD; PIM; EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), Hunger and acute child malnutrition are increasingly concentrated in fragile countries and civil conflict zones. According to the United Nations, Yemen’s civil war has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in recent history. We use high-frequency panel data and district fixed-effects and household fixed-effects models to estimate the impact of civil conflict on child nutrition. Our results indicate that an increase by one standard deviation in civil conflict intensity translates into an increase in the prevalence of acute child malnutrition by at least 0.7 percentage points if measured by weight-for-height z-scores and by at least 1.7 percentage points if measured by mid-upper arm circumference z-scores. In mid-December 2018, Yemen’s main warring parties agreed to a ceasefire for the contested port city of Hodeida and to allow humanitarian aid to be shipped in and distributed through protected corridors. While the recent agreements are an important, first step to tackle the humanitarian crisis, the road to a sustainable peace agreement will certainly be long and bumpy. Relative stability could soon open a window of opportunity for targeted interventions to support recovery in Yemen. Against this background, our analysis suggests that unconditional cash transfers can be an effective tool in situations of complex emergencies. Our estimation results show that cash transfers can mitigate the detrimental impact of lingering civil conflict on child nutritional status in Yemen on a large scale. Our results also reveal that the regularity of transfer payments influence the magnitude of the mitigation effect, as regular assistance allows beneficiary households to smoothen their food consumption and other demands influencing child nutrition outcomes.

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; Africa Rising; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; HarvestChoice, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP2; CRP4; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA), PHND; EPTD; PIM; A4NH, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Rural populations face a much higher burden of child undernutrition than urban populations, especially in sub‐Saharan Africa, a continent where many households still live in remote rural areas. Despite this, relatively little research has analyzed nutrition differences across rural and urban populations, or across gradients of rural remoteness. In this article, we study these differences in sub‐Saharan Africa by linking spatial data on travel times to urban centers with 20,000 or more people as our measure of remoteness to Demographic Health Survey data covering 74,398 children from 10,900 communities in 23 countries. We find that children in rural communities have much worse linear growth and dietary outcomes than urban children, but that children in more remote rural communities face only a small nutritional penalty compared to children from less remote communities. Moreover, the harmful effects of remoteness and rural living largely disappear once we control for education, wealth, and social/infrastructural services. This implies that the key nutritional disadvantages faced by rural populations stem chiefly from social and economic poverty. Combating these problems requires a combination of innovative cost‐effective mechanisms for extending basic services to isolated rural communities and facilitating welfare‐enhancing migration to urban areas.

PR, IFPRI3; ISI, EPTD, Low adoption of sustainable intensification technologies hinders achievement of their potential impacts on increasing agricultural productivity. Proper targeting of locations to scale-out particular technologies is a key determinant of the rate of adoption. Targeting locations with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics significantly increases the probability of adoption. Areas with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics are referred to as recommendation domains (RDs). This study used geospatial analysis to delineate sustainable recommendation domains (SRDs) for scaling improved crop varieties and good agronomic practices in Tanzania. The study uses K-means clustering to identify relatively similar clusters from grid raster’s representing biophysical and socio-economic environments. Critical ecosystems are masked-out from the clusters to generate the SRDs. The potential impacts of scaling technologies in the generated SRDs were assessed and a spatial targeting index developed. Results identify 20 SRDs and the bio-socio-economic gradients that delineate them. This study proposes an Impact Based Spatial Targeting Index (IBSTI) as an objective tool for priority setting when scaling agricultural technologies. IBSTI identified priority areas within each SRD that should be targeted to maximize potential impacts of a scaling intervention. The data-driven clustering method is recommended for regions with limited technology trials. Results demonstrate the potential of geospatial tools in generating evidence-based policies on scaling of sustainable intensification technologies.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA); CRP4; B Promoting healthy food systems, PHND; EPTD; A4NH, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Reducing undernutrition requires improving access to goods and services from a wide range of economic and social sectors, including agriculture, education and health. Yet despite broad agreement on the multisectoral nature of the global burden of undernutrition, relatively little research has analyzed how different dimensions of accessibility, such as urbanization and travel times to urban centers, affect child nutrition and dietary outcomes. In this paper we study these relationships in sub-Saharan Africa, a highly rural continent still severely hindered by remoteness problems. We link spatial data on travel times to 20,000 person cities to survey data from 10,900 communities in 23 countries. We document strong negative associations between nutrition indicators and rural livelihoods, but only moderately strong associations with remoteness to cities. Moreover, the harmful effects of remoteness and rural living largely disappear once education, wealth, and social/infrastructural services indicators are added to the model. This implies that the key nutritional disadvantage of rural populations stems chiefly from social and economic poverty. Combating these problems requires either an acceleration of urbanization processes, or finding innovative cost-effective mechanisms for extending basic services to isolated rural communities.

Non-PR, IFPRI3; CRP2; A Ensuring Sustainable food production; HarvestChoice, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Non-PR, IFPRI5; CRP1.2; E Building Resilience, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics

PR, IFPRI4; CRP2; A Ensuring Sustainable food production, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Non-PR, IFPRI1; BioSight; CRP2; A Ensuring Sustainable food production, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), The government of Malawi is pursuing an export led agricultural growth strategy, and therefore improving transport quality between major urban areas, as well as between rural areas and ports of trade or market centers, is a key pri-ority (DTIS, 2014). For this reason, being able to assess travel distances, times, and costs for major commerce routes is an important first step. Despite this, there exists a lack of basic data relating to the geographic and economic as-pects of road travel in many of these countries. The purpose of this technical brief is to describe the procedure taken for the estimation of transportation costs for use in the development of a spatially disaggregated, market level model of the Malawian agricultural sector, which is being done as part of BioSight’s ongoing work on the sustainable intensi-fication of agriculture in Africa, south of the Sahara. Modelling exercises such as these require estimation of the mar-keting margins of agricultural inputs and outputs traded across regions. The transport cost makes up a significant component of the marketing margin. High quality data on transport costs is therefore crucial for the parameterization and application of market models such as these. This technical brief describes a procedure for estimating transport distances, times, and costs between three major urban areas in south, central, and north Malawi. The difficulties around obtaining reliable spatial data and how to use these to develop and assess specific transport routes are dis-cussed.

PR, IFPRI1; CRP2; ReSAKSS; D Transforming Agriculture, DSGD; EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), The preceding chapter illustrated remarkable spatial heterogeneity in agricultural productivity across Africa at the system level, characterized by the inherent variations of climate, land suitability for agriculture, human and animal populations, expanding transportation networks, and other rural infrastructure. To help identify specific policies and investments to increase productivity in different locations, the analysis in Chapter 3 can be complemented by closer examination of the production agents within those systems. Within a given farming system, production agents also are heterogeneous, in terms of not only the resource constraints they face (Byerlee, Harrington, and Winkelmann 1982; Chambers and Jiggins 1987), but also how those resource constraints affect technology adoption and technological change that may result in productivity growth and possibly poverty reduction (Feder, Just, and Zilberman 1985; Feder and Umali 1993). The coevolution of these characteristics contributes to a dynamic context in which the nature and performance of agriculture manifest themselves through different spatial patterns of production portfolio and productivity. Identifying spatially common themes in these different portfolios can offer opportunities for developing and implementing strategies that cut across national boundaries and agroecological conditions.

PR, IFPRI1; CRP2; ReSAKSS; D Transforming Agriculture, DSGD; EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), The previous chapter examined several measures of productivity, primarily in terms of their evolution over time, and reported those changes by countries and subregions. However, the conditions under which agriculture is practiced and specific production systems predominate are highly diverse spatially, even within a single country. This chapter, therefore, examines patterns of agricultural productivity not only at a greater spatial resolution but also in terms of the spatial distribution of specific production systems. We first summarize some of the reasons for growing interest in the spatial dimensions of agriculture, briefly review the general characteristics of the spatial datasets used, and then describe the specific production system schema underpinning the analyses presented in this and subsequent chapters. In the following sections we describe the spatial variability of key factors shaping the productivity of production systems, examine the overall value of (crop) production and associated spatial patterns of land and labor productivity, and briefly discuss the projected effects of climate change spatially. In the final section, we summarize our findings and their implications for prioritizing and targeting interventions, especially in the context of planning for knowledge and technology spillover across domains, countries, and subregions.

Non-PR, IFPRI2; E Building Resilience; CRP1, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems, This report serves as documentation for the construction, operation and utility of the Horn of Africa Data Catalog (accessible online at http://data.technicalconsortium.org), which was developed to serve as a platform to provide indicators identified as critical to the work of the Technical Consortium for Building Resilience in the Horn of Africa (TC) and its partners. This technical report provides details on the implementation of resilience analytical framework using an open access data and knowledge management platform and presents examples on how to access and visualize them online through the web user interface and the application programming interface (API).

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; CRP2, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

PR, IFPRI3; HarvestChoice, EPTD

Non-PR, IFPRI4; HarvestChoice; CRP2, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Non-PR, IFPRI5, EPTD

Non-PR, IFPRI1; D.1 Agriculture's role in national development strategy; HarvestChoice; CRP2; ReSAKSS, DSGD; EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), The great diversity of agricultural activities and practices across the African continent has significant implications for technology transfer and productivity growth. This paper compiles diverse spatial data on biophysical conditions, farming systems, demographics, and infrastructure to spatially disaggregate country targets into subsystem units, namely agricultural production zones. The resulting typologies highlight the limitations of simple national aggregates and reveal remarkable heterogeneity in the subsystems within the country. The typologies provide a natural linkage between national-level analysis and localized production information and can help policymakers in refining national agricultural strategies through location- and subsystem-oriented policies based on local comparative advantages and constraints. The classification is useful in identifying commonalities beyond a country’s borders and hence encourages cross learning and joint efforts in scaling up policies.

PR, IFPRI3; HarvestChoice, EPTD

Non-PR, IFPRI1; ReSAKSS; C Improving markets and trade; HarvestChoice, DSGD; WCAO; ESAO; EPTD, The production landscape and its characteristics influence the relationship between trade, biophysical conditions, and climate variability. Agricultural production directly affects the level of potential output that can be exported and is indirectly (and inversely) correlated with the level of imports, given the substitution effect between internally produced and externally procured goods to maintain a steady level of internal consumption. Production characteristics and conditions are extremely heterogeneous across SSA, indicating spatial variability in production. Moreover, local natural conditions are strongly correlated with the ability of households to adapt to or manage shocks, that is, their “resilience.”

PR, IFPRI1; HarvestChoice; CRP2, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

PR, IFPRI1; HarvestChoice; CRP2, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), Across Africa buying and selling connects people. For a small-scale farmer, this trade takes place primarily within a limited geographic area based on access to market centers of a given size. The maps illustrate these areas using different colors to represent marketsheds—geographical areas and associated populations that are part of real or potential trade networks with a given market. From any location within a marketshed, it takes less time to travel to the corresponding market compared to any neighboring markets. In theory, farmers within a marketshed prefer to trade their commodities at the corresponding market, which minimizes travel cost (p. 66).

PR, IFPRI1; HarvestChoice; CRP2, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), More than 300 million Africans, about 30 percent of the total population, live more than one day away from the nearest port. Even when ports lie within a few hundred miles, typically sparse road networks, poor maintenance, and limited transportation infrastructure translate into high access costs. The larger map illustrates cost-of-travel accessibility to 63 major African ports, based on port type, size, and capacity in terms of the estimated total number of hours, both off and on the road network, required to travel from any location in Africa to the nearest port.

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; HarvestChoice; Assessment of the role of irrigation for climate change adaptation in Africa, EPTD

Non-PR, IFPRI5; HarvestChoice, EPTD, 35 pages

PR, IFPRI4; CRP2; HarvestChoice; Land Resource Management for Poverty Reduction, EPTD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

PR, IFPRI3; ISI; GRP22; Assessment of the role of irrigation for climate change adaptation in Africa, EPTD

Non-PR, IFPRI1; ReSAKSS; HarvestChoice, DSGD; EPTD, The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) provides an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities aimed at reducing poverty and increasing food security by achieving an average of 6 percent agricultural growth rate every year. Initial economic modeling results to support CAADP planning indicate that, while it is possible for many African countries to reach this target, it will require substantial additional growth across different agricultural sub-sectors and commodities, as well as substantial investments to stimulate the necessary acceleration in growth. In many cases, the agricultural investments required are in excess of the 10 percent of total expenditures commitment agreed on under the Maputo declaration. This is necessary because of the moderate and slowly growing agricultural productivity across the continent. As countries enter the operational stage of CAADP investment program design and execution, mostly starting in 2011, a fundamental policy research question is how to raise and maintain high agricultural productivity across different parts of the continent, particularly technical change, given the limits to factor substitution. This 2011 annual trends and outlook report (ATOR) addresses the gap by analyzing the inter-temporal trends and spatial patterns in partial and total factor productivity, to help identify options for raising and sustaining high agricultural productivity across different parts of the continent.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; GRP22, EPTD, Although irrigation in Africa has the potential to boost agricultural productivities by at least 50 percent, food production on the continent is almost entirely rainfed. The area equipped for irrigation, currently slightly more than 13 million hectares, makes up just 6 percent of the total cultivated area. Eighty-five percent of Africa's poor live in rural areas and mostly depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. As a result, agricultural development is key to ending poverty on the continent. Many development organizations have recently proposed to significantly increase investments in irrigation in the region. However, the potential for irrigation investments in Africa is highly dependent upon geographic, hydrologic, agronomic, and economic factors that need to be taken into account when assessing the long-term viability and sustainability of planned projects. This paper analyzes large, dam-based and small-scale irrigation investment needs in Africa based on agronomic, hydrologic, and economic factors. This type of analysis can guide country- and local-level assessment of irrigation potential, which will be important to agricultural and economic development in Africa.

Non-PR, IFPRI-5, EPTD, 38 pages