Helping feed the world with rice innovations: CGIAR research adoption and socioeconomic impact on farmers.

Rice production has increased significantly with the efforts of international research centers and national governments in the past five decades. Nonetheless, productivity improvement still needs to accelerate in the coming years to feed the growing population that depends on rice for calories and nutrients. This challenge is compounded by the increasing scarcity of natural resources such as water and farmland. This article reviews 17 ex-post impact assessment studies published from 2016 to 2021 on rice varieties, agronomic practices, institutional arrangements, information and communication technologies, and post-harvest technologies used by rice farmers. From the review of these selected studies, we found that stress-tolerant varieties in Asia and Africa significantly increased rice yield and income. Additionally, institutional innovations, training, and natural resource management practices, such as direct-seeded rice, rodent control, and iron-toxicity removal, have had a considerable positive effect on smallholder rice farmers' economic well-being (income and rice yield). Additional positive impacts are expected from the important uptake of stress-tolerant varieties documented in several Asian, Latin American, and African countries.

Photosynthesis research: a model to bridge fundamental science, translational products, and socio-economic considerations in agriculture.

Despite impressive success in molecular physiological understanding of photosynthesis, and preliminary evidence on its potential for quantum shifts in agricultural productivity, the question remains of whether increased photosynthesis, without parallel fine-tuning of the associated processes, is enough. There is a distinct lack of formal socio-economic impact studies that address the critical questions of product profiling, cost-benefit analysis, environmental trade-offs, and technological and market forces in product acceptability. When a relatively well understood process gains enough traction for translational value, its broader scientific and technical gap assessment, in conjunction with its socio-economic impact assessment for success, should be a prerequisite. The successes in the upstream basic understanding of photosynthesis should be integrated with a gap analysis for downstream translational applications to impact the farmers' and customers' lifestyles and livelihoods. The purpose of this review is to assess how the laboratory, the field, and the societal demands from photosynthesis could generate a transformative product. Two crucial recommendations from the analysis of the state of knowledge and potential ways forward are (i) the formulation of integrative mega-projects, which span the multistakeholder spectrum, to ensure rapid success in harnessing the transformative power of photosynthesis; and (ii) stipulating spatiotemporal, labour, and economic criteria to stage-gate deliverables.

Taxing highly processed foods: What could be the impacts on obesity and underweight in sub-Saharan Africa?

The consumption of highly processed food has been singled out as one of the factors responsible for the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity and its associated non-communicable diseases and costs. While obesity prevalence is still comparatively low in lower-income sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), development prospects in this region render markets especially attractive for these foods, whose consumption is already growing at higher rates than in developed countries. This might be reflected in the massive rise in obesity prevalence growth rates in SSA over the past decade, while many of these countries are simultaneously struggling with high undernutrition prevalence. Using a newly constructed cross-country panel dataset, this study econometrically investigates the effect of higher import tariffs on highly processed vis-à-vis less-processed foods with respect to their impacts on obesity and underweight prevalence in the adult population. While the analysis is global, the discussion focuses primarily on SSA. The effects of the tariff differences are found to be significant and substantial and to differ by income level of the country as well as by gender. More generally, the results show that policies affecting the consumer price differential between the two food groups are effective in influencing obesity and underweight prevalence and that these two issues cannot be treated separately.

Does reducing food losses and wastes in sub-Saharan Africa make economic sense?

Reducing food losses and waste (FLW) is one of the sustainable ways of closing the food requirement gap in developing countries. However, there is not yet adequate knowledge on the extent of FLW by commodity type and stage of the food supply chain (FSC). Focusing on ten agrarian countries in Africa and building mainly on the Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Balance Sheets (FBSs), this study generates some new insights on the level of FLW by country, FSC and food type. Across the FSC, we find that these countries lose a cumulative amount equivalent to 28% (641 kilocalories per capita per day - kcal/cap/day) of the current calorie intake. Within the FSC, the production and post-harvest handling stages contribute the greater shares of the total losses with 38% or 244 kcal/cap/day and 34% or 218 kcal/cap/day, respectively. Our results also show that farm incomes would increase by 20% if the avoidable losses and waste were recovered. These results are troublesome given the level of poverty and food insecurity in these countries and suggest inefficient and unsustainable use of natural resources (water and cropland) associated with the FSC losses.