Posted on March, 27, 2017 at 10:34 am
With rapid urbanization dramatically shifting demographics across the developing world in recent years, this year’s report focuses on how urbanization is changing food systems, health, and development.
The report finds that cities provide an opportunity to boost farmers' incomes, if they are effectively connected through strong value chains.
“Urbanization is driving huge changes in how small farmers connect with markets to sell their goods, global diets, and the way that food systems are governed,” said Shenggen Fan, director-general of IFPRI.
“Helping policy makers, city residents, and rural smallholders in the developing world understand this changing environment, and how to respond to it, is absolutely necessary to achieve the sustainable development agenda.”
Cities provide opportunities for rural smallholders to raise their incomes by connecting to larger urban markets and typically more wealthy urban consumers.
For urban consumers small farmers can provide an important source of diverse and nutritious foods. But the links between these areas in the developing world are often weak or broken, hindering growth and development.
In Nigeria, for example, 60 percent of rice purchased in urban areas is imported, despite significant efforts to boost domestic production. A weak value chain for postharvest processing of domestic rice creates inconsistencies in labeling, quality, and taste that turn off urban consumers.
On the other side of the value chain, research in Ethiopia has revealed proximity to cities is an important determinant of whether farmers adopt new agricultural technologies that improve yields and products.
Farmers near the capital of Addis Ababa were far more likely than those in remote areas to adopt new technologies like fertilizer and improved seed varieties, because they had access to better information about best practices and urban markets where they could sell their higher-value products for higher prices.
Such increased investment in modern agricultural technologies and inputs, along with the use of communications technologies like mobile phones, and improvements in value chains – including cold storage, milling, and access to supermarkets – is sparking a “quiet revolution” that is increasing the productivity of staple crops.
Cities are increasingly becoming engines of this sort of change in agriculture, but without investment that provides strong connections between urban and rural areas, smallholders further away from cities will not be able to take advantage of the benefits.
Places like Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Ghana have demonstrated that investments in quality roads, electricity, and reliable storage facilities strengthen the connections that can stimulate growth and improve welfare in both rural and urban areas.
This year’s report also features chapters on how urbanization is changing diets and the landscape of poverty and health; and the role informal economies play in providing food for Africa's urban populations; as well as updated data sets on global hunger, agricultural investment, public expenditures, and more.
To speak with chapter authors about the content and themes of the report please contact Drew Sample: d.sample@cgiar.org <mailto:d.sample@cgiar.org>.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty.
IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries.
Source: IPP Media