IFPRI CGIAR
Subscribe

Back

Who we are

With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

benin_samuel_0

researcher spotlight

Samuel Benin

Samuel Benin is the Acting Director for Africa in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. He conducts research on national strategies and public investment for accelerating food systems transformation in Africa and provides analytical support to the African Union’s CAADP Biennial Review.

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country Programs

Research by country and region

Subscribe

Projects

Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA)

Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture Phase II (ARENA-II) is a 3-year, multi-country project in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, being implemented from 2017 through 2020. The objective of ARENA is to close important knowledge gaps on the links between nutrition and agriculture, with a particular focus on conducting policy-relevant research at scale and crowding in more research on this issue by creating data sets and analytical tools that can benefit the broader research community.

Research under this project includes studies on the linkages between animal sources foods and stunting, on measuring and improving the affordability of healthy foods and healthy diets, understanding the links between food market quality and food choice, on farming systems and nutrition, and on the impacts of structural transformation on nutrition.

Project duration: 2017 – 2020

Contact

Derek Headey

Donors and funders

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Feed handling practices, aflatoxin awareness and children’s milk consumption in the Sidama region of southern Ethiopia

2024Anato, Anchamo; Headey, Derek D.; Hirvonen, Kalle; Pokharel, Ashish; Tessema, Masresha; Wu, Felicia; Baye, Kaleab
Details

Feed handling practices, aflatoxin awareness and children’s milk consumption in the Sidama region of southern Ethiopia

Consumption of milk is linked to improved nutrient intake and reduced risk of child malnutrition in low and middle-income countries. However, these benefits are contingent on the safety and quality of the milk. Milk consumption may alleviate the widespread risk of malnutrition in rural Ethiopia, but milk-borne contaminants may also compromise child health. We aimed to: i) identify the types of dairy feeds used, their storage conditions, and potential risk of aflatoxin contamination; ii) assess stakeholders’ knowledge about aflatoxin contamination along the value chain; and iii) assess parental practices on feeding milk to infants and young children. This qualitative study was conducted in the Sidama region, southern Ethiopia. In-depth interviews (n = 12) and key-informant interviews (n = 18) were conducted with actors along the dairy value chain. Focus-group discussions were conducted with farmers (9FGD/n = 129) and child caregivers (9FGD/n = 122). Study participants were selected to represent a rural-urban gradient, as well as low- and high- dairy cow holdings. We found that while animal-feed processors and their distribution agents had relatively good knowledge about aflatoxin, farmers and retailers did not. Feed storage conditions were poor. Many respondents linked moldy feeds to animal health but not to human health. Farmers’ feed choice was influenced by cost, seasonality, and herd size. Small-holding farmers had limited access to commercial feed. Children’s consumption of milk was limited to skim milk, as butter was extracted and sold for income. The high cost of dairy products also led some parents to dilute skim milk with water before feeding children, compromising the nutritional value and safety of the milk. Our findings underscore the need to address the gaps in aflatoxin and food safety knowledge, improve storage conditions, and ensure the availability of quality feed to increase the sector’s productivity, but most importantly to protect consumers’ health and well-being, especially infants and young children.

Year published

2024

Authors

Anato, Anchamo; Headey, Derek D.; Hirvonen, Kalle; Pokharel, Ashish; Tessema, Masresha; Wu, Felicia; Baye, Kaleab

Citation

Anato, Anchamo; Headey, Derek; Hirvonen, Kalle; Pokharel, Ashish; Tessema, Masresha; Wu, Felicia; and Baye, Kaleab. Feed handling practices, aflatoxin awareness and children’s milk consumption in the Sidama region of southern Ethiopia. One Health 18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100672

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Feed Safety; Aflatoxins; Child Health; Milk; Consumption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100672 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries

2024Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; Narayanan, Sudha
Details

The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries

Dairy products have an exceptionally rich nutrient profile and have long been promoted in high income countries to redress child malnutrition. But given all this potential, and the high burden of undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), why isn’t dairy consumption more actively promoted in the developing world? In this review we focus on a broadly defined concept of “dairy development” to include production, trade, marketing, regulation, and demand stimulation. We address three key questions. First, how strong is the evidence on the importance of dairy production and consumption for improving nutrition among young children in LMICs? Second, which regions have the lowest consumption of dairy products? Third, what are the supply- and demand-side challenges that prevent LMICs from expanding dairy consumption? We argue that although more nutrition- and consumer-oriented dairy development interventions have tremendous potential to redress undernutrition in LMICs, the pathways for achieving this development are highly context-specific: LMICs with significant agroecological potential for dairy production primarily require institutional solutions for the complex marketing challenges in perishable milk value chains; lower potential LMICs require consumer-oriented trade and industrial approaches to the sector’s development. And all dairy strategies require a stronger focus on cross-cutting issues of nutrition education and demand creation, food safety and quality, gender and inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability and resilience. We conclude our review by emphasizing important areas for research and policy expansion.

Year published

2024

Authors

Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; Narayanan, Sudha

Citation

Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; and Narayanan, Sudha. 2024. The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries. Food Policy 122(January 2024): 102585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102585

Keywords

Child Stunting; Malnutrition; Milk Production; Nutrition Education; Value Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102585 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Household dairy production, dairy intake, and anthropometric outcomes in rural Bangladesh

2023Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John F.
Details

Household dairy production, dairy intake, and anthropometric outcomes in rural Bangladesh

We assess whether ownership of dairy cows is associated with a greater likelihood of consuming dairy products and with child anthropometric status in rural Bangladesh. Consistent with the assumption of imperfectly functioning markets for dairy products, ownership of dairy cows increases the likelihood that a child 6–59 months consumes milk by 7.7 percentage points with no difference in this association between boys and girls. This association nearly doubles in magnitude when we consider households that own a dairy cow that produced milk in the last year. This result is robust to the controls we use and the way in which we measure dairy cow ownership. Even when we saturate our model with child, maternal, household, wealth, as well as village fixed effects, we retain an association between dairy cow ownership and height-for-age z scores (HAZ) that is meaningful in magnitude – 0.13 standard deviations – and statistically significant at the one percent level. For children in the 12–23.9 month age group, ownership of a dairy cow is associated with a 0.37 SD increase in HAZ and a reduction of 11.3 percentage points in stunting. There is no statistically significant association with weight-for-height or wasting. These associations do not differ between boys and girls.

Year published

2023

Authors

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John F.

Citation

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; and Hoddinott, John F. 2023. Household dairy production, dairy intake, and anthropometric outcomes in rural Bangladesh. Food Policy 121(November 2023): 102567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102567

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Milk Products; Child Nutrition; Anthropometry; Households; Stunting; Food Consumption; Dairy Cows; Rural Areas

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102567 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Heat shocks linked to lower maize yields and reduced child height: Evidence from Tanzania
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 05, 2021

Heat shocks linked to lower maize yields and reduced child height: Evidence from Tanzania

By Steven Block, Beliyou Haile, Liangzhi You, and Derek Headey

The first time such a connection has been established between climate change, agricultural productivity, and health.

1.15 Million Children, 122,472 communities, 57 countries, 30 years: New dataset combines Demographic and Health Surveys with geographic information systems
IFPRI Blog
 | 
February 22, 2021

1.15 Million Children, 122,472 communities, 57 countries, 30 years: New dataset combines Demographic and Health Surveys with geographic information systems

By Zhe Guo, Wahid Quabili, Liangzhi You, and Derek Headey

Making important connections between agriculture, health, and nutrition.

Why 'home garden' projects don’t always work: Insights from Ethiopia
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 04, 2020

Why ‘home garden’ projects don’t always work: Insights from Ethiopia

By Kalle Hirvonen and Derek Headey

There are valid reasons to doubt whether these programs provide a sustainable and cost-effective way of addressing poor nutrition.

Donors

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Team members

Derek Headey

Derek Headey

Senior Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance

Derek Headey

Derek Headey

Senior Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance

Channing Arndt

Channing Arndt

Senior Director, Transformation Strategies, CGIAR and IFPRI, Development
Strategies and Governance, Foresight and Policy Modeling, Natural Resources and Resilience, Innovation Policy and Scaling

Will Martin

Will Martin

Senior Research Fellow, Markets,
Trade, and Institutions

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You

Senior Research Fellow, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Zhe Guo

Zhe Guo

Senior GIS Coordinator, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Wahid Quabili

Wahid Quabili

Senior Research Analyst, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Other

Topics/Countries