Rob Vos

• PhD Economics
• Director at International Food Policy Research Institute

Key messages • Global agrifood trade has tripled since 1975, driven in part by a growing trade in processed foods. • Agricultural policies in developing countries have shifted from taxing agriculture to providing positive support and protection, converging to the lower levels of trade protection of developed economies and helping to spur trade. • I...

There is an international consensus that Africans consume less fruits and vegetables (FV), and animal products (AP) than they need for adequate nutrition, and that production and supply chains of these products are constrained. Yet, in this paper, we show that despite these problems, there is a lot of dynamism in demand and supply of these nutrient...

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), Zero Hunger, by 2030 is in jeopardy due to slowing and unequal economic growth, climate shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, lackluster efforts toward investing in food system sustainability and agricultural productivity growth, and persistent barriers to open food trade. Nevertheless, numerous...

Since peaking in April 2022, global agricultural food commodity prices have declined by almost 25% as of October 2023, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index. Contributing to the decrease were strong harvests in large food producing countries, steep declines in shipping costs, and more affordable energy and f...

Although the global food system increasingly is viewed as unsustainable for human and planetary health, the policy pathways for transforming the status quo are often highly contentious. This book brings together inter-disciplinary scholars to analyze the political economy dynamics central to food system transformation and to identify pathways for e...

After the sharp rise in international prices of wheat and other staple foods in the wake of Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, since May prices have fallen back to pre-war levels. Has the global food price crisis now come to an end? Unfortunately, such a conclusion is premature. Domestic food prices for consumers continue to rise in most countr...

Better, swifter and more responsive international coordination is needed within our global financial system for the containment of the pandemic and its effects. This requires better international tax coordination with a higher global minimum corporate tax, comprehensive coverage of sectors and firms, inclusion of all current tax havens and more gen...

Finance is a critical catalyst of food systems transformation. At the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, the Financial Lever Group suggested five imperatives to tap into new financial resources while making better use of existing ones. These imperatives are yet to garner greater traction to instigate meaningful change.

Early-warning, early-action systems provide alerts of potential food crises-identified as sudden and substantial increases in acute food insecurity-as well as guidance to policymakers and international development agencies about needs for humanitarian action. ■ Use of different methodologies and varying coverage of vulnerable populations mean diffe...

Developing country food supply chains have been pummeled by a series (and often a confluence) of shocks over the past several decades, including the Russia-Ukraine war, COVID-19, climate shocks from hurricanes to floods to droughts, animal and plant diseases, an intensification of road banditry and local conflicts, and overlaying all these, deep tr...

Almost a year after the February 2022 Russian invasion in Ukraine, fears of a period of sustained high global food prices have subsided somewhat, but eight major concerns for food security remain.

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) typically made little provision for coping with economic volatility and hardly paid attention to macroeconomic trade-offs when scaling up public spending for poverty reduction. This chapter assesses such trade-offs in the case of Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua, using economy-wide models and accounting...

Agricultural support policies cost more than US$800 billion per year in transfers to the farm sector worldwide. Support policies based on subsidies and trade barriers are highly distortive to markets and are also regressive as most support is provided to larger farmers. On balance, the incentives this support creates appear to increase greenhouse g...

The impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on food systems, poverty, and nutrition have been caused by generalized economic recession and disruptions in agrifood supply chains. This article reviews a growing empirical literature assessing those impacts. The review confirms that income shocks and supply disruptions have affected food securit...

Food prices are skyrocketing around the world. In January, international prices for major food items climbed to a level near the heights of the global food price crises of 2007-08 and 2010-11, according to the FAO Food Price Index (Figure 1). The spike has raised concerns over the potential for another global food crisis, increasing hunger among th...

The global economic crisis provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionally hurt developing countries, increasing poverty, food insecurity, and income inequality. Richer nations cushioned their economies from the worst impacts with unprecedented massive fiscal and financial support programmes. Developing countries lacked such capacity and receiv...

Child labour in agriculture remains a global concern. Agriculture is the sector where most child labour is found. Employment of children mostly relates to farm household poverty in developing countries. This raises the question of the extent to which the modernisation of agriculture prevents the use of child labour while also leading to higher prod...

This paper provides a quantitative impact assessment of the community-based integrated natural resources management project (CBINReMP) in the Lake Tana region in Ethiopia during 2011-2019. By promoting greater community participation, the CBINReMP provided support to watershed communities for the restoration of degraded soils and water sources, reh...

• Many children engage in productive activities in developing countries. The prevalence is particularly high in parts of Africa, such as in Ethiopia where more than one third of children aged 5-14 years engage in farm or off-farm work. • The prevalence of child labour in agriculture is lower, at 10% or less in seven countries in Asia and Africa tha...

Agricultural production is both strongly affected by climate change and a major contributor to it, with agriculture and associated land-use change and post-farm food sector activity accounting for one third of total global greenhouse gas emissions—more than for transport or industrial uses combined. Climate change is already affecting agricultural...

The world is not on track to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. Even before the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people everywhere, undernourishment was on the rise. During 2020, more than 2.3 billion people (or 30 percent of the global population) lacked year-round access to adequate food, a one-year increase that was as much as the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed both the vulnerability and the resilience of food supply chains. Supply chains from farm to retail have been disrupted, primarily by government-imposed lockdowns and other restrictions affecting labor supply, input provisioning, logistics, wholesale, retailing, and food service. Supply chains have also shown a goo...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major shock to food supply chains, as lockdowns and restrictions affecting labor supply, input provisioning, logistics, and distribution channels severely compromised poor consumers' access to food. Yet it could have been worse; food systems have also shown resilience and innovative capacity to adjust. The new con...

Agricultural production is strongly affected by and a major contributor to climate change. Agriculture and land-use change account for a quarter of total global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Agriculture receives around US$600 billion per year worldwide in government support. No rigorous quantification of the impact of this support on GHG emi...

The food system, and those who depend on it, have been strongly but unevenly affected by COVID‐19. Overall, the impacts on food systems, poverty, and nutrition have been caused by a combination of a generalized economic recession and disruptions in agri‐food supply chains. This paper provides an overview of the contributions to this Special Issue o...

COVID-19 and related lockdown policies in 2020 shocked food industry firms' supply chains in developing regions. Firms "pivoted" to e-commerce to reach consumers and e-procurement to reach processors and farmers. "Delivery intermediaries" co-pivoted with food firms to help them deliver and procure. This was crucial to the ability of the food firms...

Propelled by urbanization, rising incomes, and changing diets, food markets have been expanding in Africa and South Asia, creating the vast potential for job and income opportunities along food supply chains and, hence, for poverty reduction. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that spread to a pandemic in early 2020 provokes enormous setbacks to this...

This study assesses the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) on poverty, food insecurity, and diets, accounting for the complex links between the crisis and the incomes and living costs of vulnerable households. Key elements are impacts on labor supply, effects of social distancing, shifts in demand from services involving close contact, i...

Coronavirus disease 2019 and related lockdown policies in 2020 shocked food industry firms’ supply chains in developing regions. Firms “pivoted” to e‐commerce to reach consumers and e‐procurement to reach processors and farmers. “Delivery intermediaries” copivoted with food firms to help them deliver and procure. This was crucial to the ability of...

African consumers have purchased increasing amounts of processed food over the past 50 years. The opportunity cost of time of women and men has increased as more of them work outside the home, driving them to buy processed food and food prepared away from home to save arduous home-processing and preparation labor. In the past several decades, this...

This note provides the methodology underlying a newly created database mapping GHG emissions from agriculture by source, commodity, and country. It is supplementary material to a new study by David Laborde, Abdullah Mamun, Will Martin, Valeria Pineiro, & Rob Vos on Agricultural subsidies and global greenhouse gas emissions under final review by Nat...

information still exist. This Special Issue provides new evidence on the extent and determinants of food loss and waste. The Overview paper by Cattaneo, Sanchez, Torero & Vos summarizes the main findings and identifies policy-relevant information gaps that tries to fill these gaps and identifies five challenges for researchers, policymakers and pra...

This study assesses the impact of COVID-19 on poverty, food insecurity and diets, accounting for the complex links between the crisis and the incomes and living costs of vulnerable households. Key elements are impacts on labor supply; effects of social distancing; shifts in demand from services involving close contact; increases in the cost of logi...

Too little is known about which factors are associated with food loss and waste, especially in developing countries. Inadequate post-harvest handling practices and lack of cold or dry storage and transportation are among several known food chain weaknesses that are major causes of food losses. Yet, even where farmers and other supply chain actors a...

Agricultural production is both strongly affected by climate change and a major contributor to climate change, with agriculture and land use change accounting for around a quarter of total global emissions of greenhouse gases. Agricultural production benefits from substantial government support, costing around US$600 billion per year worldwide. The...

Agricultural production is both strongly affected by climate change and a major contributor to climate change, with agriculture and land use change accounting for around a quarter of total global emissions of greenhouse gases. Agricultural production benefits from substantial government support, costing around US$600 billion per year worldwide. The...

Despite broad agreement in policy circles on the need to reduce food loss and waste (FLW), considerable gaps in information still exist. This paper identifies policy-relevant information gaps, summarizes recent research that tries to fill these gaps and identifies five challenges for researchers, policymakers and practitioners in reducing FLW. The...

This study provides a quantitative assessment of progress made towards the sustainable development goal of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition since 1990. Using a cluster analysis, it categorizes country performance along three dimensions: (1) food security and nutrition outcomes; (2) structural drivers of food security and nutrition; and (...

To understand the impacts of support programs on global emissions, this paper considers the impacts of domestic subsidies, price distortions at the border, and investments in emission-reducing technologies on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture. In a step towards a full evaluation of the impacts, it uses a counterfactual global m...

COVID-19 poses acute threats to food security. The worst of these arise from the global recession that is causing many to lose their incomes and threatens the access of many vulnerable people to the food they need. Other threats arise from disruptions in agricultural input markets, production, marketing, and distribution of food. To avoid major foo...

With COVID-19 and its economic fallout now spreading in the poorest parts of the world, many more people will become poor and food-insecure. In a new scenario analysis, we estimate that globally, absent interventions, over 140 million people could fall into extreme poverty (measured against the $1.90 poverty line) in 2020 — an increase of 20% from...

As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, fears of a deep global recession are mounting. Some also fear that food supplies may start running short, especially if supply chains are disrupted. Others fear that agricultural production may be disrupted by containment measures that restrict workers from harvesting and handling crops. While we should take th...

Propelled by urbanization, rising incomes, and changing diets, food markets are expanding in Africa and South Asia, creating enormous potential for job and income opportunities along food supply chains. Small and medium-sized enterprises have proliferated in storage, logistics, transportation, and wholesale and retail distribution to meet growing r...

The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 exposed systemic failings at the core of economic policy making worldwide. The crisis came on top of several other crises, including skyrocketing and highly volatile world food and energy prices and climate change. This book argues that new policy approaches are needed to address such devastating global devel...

With COVID-19 and its economic fallout now spreading in the poorest parts of the world, many more people will become poor and food-insecure. In a new scenario analysis, we estimate that globally, absent interventions, 148 million people could fall into extreme poverty (measured against the PPP$1.90 poverty line) in 2020—an increase of 20% from pres...

KEY FINDINGS ■ More than half of all undernourished people live in countries affected by conflict. ■ Food insecurity and dispossession of agricultural assets can both trigger and result from civil strife. ■ Most conflict-affected countries are overwhelmingly rural, and rural populations are more vulnerable to climate shocks that often compound conf...

Over the past sixty years, Asian countries have gone through rapid agricultural transformations helping to lift broader economic development. The change has differed in nature and speed across countries of the region. In much of East and Southeast Asia, agricultural productivity growth facilitated labour exit and savings transfers, which helped jum...

The world is facing a new round of international tax competition that may result in a ruinous race to the bottom, undermining the fiscal capacity of states to respond to global challenges and to implement the Agenda 2030. G20 leaders must take action to strengthen multilateral and cooperative approaches to taxation, curtail harmful tax competition...

More and better quality private sector investment in food systems will be needed if countries are to achieve their Sustainable Development Goals. The key challenge addressed in this paper is how investment in food systems can be redirected such that it is both adequate to drive dynamic food system development and has the quality of promoting inclus...

More and better quality private sector investment in food systems will be needed if countries are to achieve their Sustainable Development Goals. The key challenge addressed in this paper is how investment in food systems can be redirected such that it is both adequate to drive dynamic food system development and has the quality of promoting inclus...

Unique social accounting matrix for Panama including special "sector" for Panama Canal. Should be cited as belonging to the study "The Panama-USA Free Trade Agreement and its Impact on Employment, Distribution and Poverty. An ex-ante evaluation using a dynamic CGE model ", Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, August 2005.

Over the past sixty years, most Asian countries have undergone relatively rapid agricultural transformations that helped jumpstart broader economic development. However, the changes have differed markedly in nature and speed across countries of the region. In much of East and Southeast Asia, the Green Revolution brought a quantum leap in yields of...

The world is facing a new round of international tax competition that may result in a ruinous race to the bottom, undermining the fiscal capacity of states to respond to global challenges and to implement the Agenda 2030. G20 leaders must take action to strengthen multilateral and cooperative approaches to taxation, curtail harmful tax competition...

Between 1999 and 2007, global economic trends were characterized by the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the bubble and burst of the dot-com crisis, and a global recovery which triggered a boom in commodity prices and inflated housing and stock market bubbles in the US and other high-income countries. These trends culminated into the global...

En dépit des progrès remarquables réalisés pour réduire la faim et la pauvreté dans le monde, quelque 800 millions de personnes souffrent toujours de sous-alimentation. L’insécurité alimentaire et la malnutrition sont des problèmes qui affectent plus particulièrement les zones rurales et qui s’inscrivent dans tout un ensemble d’inégalités spatiales...

A solid middle class can provide the backbone for more stable societies and sustained welfare. Ecuador’s experience, alike that witnessed elsewhere in LA, has yet to reach that footing. This chapter analyzes the roots of the stark decline of poverty and the commensurate rise of an emerging middle class in Ecuador. These trends happened on the back...

Show the impact of concentration in fertilizer markets on farm-level input prices and implications for fertilizer use and adaptation to climate change by smallholders in Africa.

One of the greatest challenges today is to end hunger and poverty while making agriculture and food systems sustainable. The challenge is daunting because of continued population growth, profound changes in food demand, and the threat of mass migration of rural youth in search of a better life. This report presents strategies that can leverage the...

There are strong links between conflict, food insecurity and peace. Yet the precise underlying causes and channels that determine these links are often not well understood. This study finds that conflicts tend to have strongly adverse effects on hunger, nutrition and overall sustainable development. Notably, a majority of the world’s hungry live i...

The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, represents a new beginning in the global effort to stabilize the climate before it is too late. It recognizes the importance of food security in the international response to climate change, as reflected by many countries focusing prominently on the agriculture sector in their planned contributions to...

Despite impressive progress in reducing hunger and poverty, about 800 million people worldwide continue to suffer from undernourishment. Food insecurity and malnutrition are problems affecting rural areas in particular, as part of a pattern of deep-rooted spatial inequalities. Conventional sectoral agriculture and food policies often overlook such...

Continuation along previously trodden economic growth pathways will further exacerbate the pressures exerted on the world’s resources and natural environment and sooner than later approach limits where livelihoods are no longer sustainable. Business as usual is thus not an option. Yet, even if we were to stop global engines of growth now, the deple...

Continuation along current development pathways is not sustainable. Available technology and production practices and the consumption patterns of modern societies are leading to global warming and ecological destruction. Business as usual is not an option. There is an urgent need to find a new development paradigm that ensures environmental sustain...

In many parts of the world, flooding is a big risk. There are numerous strategies to reduce flood risk. The amount of flood risk reduction strategies grows exponentially with the amount of possible measures that can be implemented and possible timings when measures can be implemented. In this paper, the use of a financial method called “equivalent”...

Writing well ahead of the global financial crisis, UN economists send out another warning signal. The financial market turmoil of the late summer of 2007 may be a fading memory, as stock markets hit new highs and borrowers regain access to credit markets, but the imbalances they exposed continue to loom large over global economic prospects. What was...

A universal minimum social pension provides the surest way to tackle the problem of income insecurity for the elderly. Universal pensions would provide a floor below which nobody could fall. Moreover, they could provide the basis for a more comprehensive pension system which may consist of a mixture of public and private initiatives adapted in acco...

Population ageing is accompanied by a changing health profile, with chronic diseases, which tend to afflict old-er persons the most, increasing relative to those infectious and communicable diseases which hit younger people more. This demographic and epidemiological transition is most advanced in the developed countries, but is already under way in...

Well in advance of the global financial crisis, UN economists warned that the slowdown in the US could well evolve into a major global downturn and called for coordinated international policy responses. National economic policies and existing multilateral arrangements have not been designed to effectively mitigate the risk of a global slowdown or to...

The introduction and diffusion of new technologies is crucial in meeting the challenges of climate change and fostering a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy. Such technologies are expected to introduce low-carbon energy sources and help improve energy efficiency. The distribution of patent ownership of climate-related technologies, however, is v...

What first appeared as sub-prime mortgage cracks in the United States housing market during the summer of 2007, began widening during 2008 into deeper fissures across the global financial landscape, and ended with the collapse of major banking institutions, precipitous falls on stock markets across the world and a credit freeze. These financial sho...

To have a lasting impact, the policy response to the current crisis has to be unambiguously comprehensive in coverage, involving the participation of all countries, as well as tailored to their capacity to carry the burden of adjustment. More fundamental reforms include, especially, the creation of an officially backed multi-currency reserve system...

There are significant threats to sustainable food security and nutrition in the long-run, including demographic and environmental pressures and changing business practices in agriculture with the emergence of global values chains. The global nature and public good aspects of the challenges require coordinated responses and urgent improvement of the...

It has been famously said that "no country has been able to sustain rapid economic growth until its citizens and investors were confident that food was reliably available in the main urban markets”. This basically holds true and was this was also an underlying thinking of the founding fathers of development economics.The implications may have been...

There are significant threats to sustainable food security and nutrition in the long-run, including demographic and environmental pressures and changing business practices in agriculture with the emergence of global values chains. The global nature and public good aspects of the challenges require coordinated responses and urgent improvement of the...

Living well, “vivir bien”, starts of course with eating well. First things first. We have many improved measures of wellbeing and even happiness. We also have a longstanding tradition as to how we measure food sufficiency and good nutrition. But, timely and accurate measurement across whole population remains difficult. FAO measures food insecurity...

In this book, leading experts examine the causes and consequences of rising economic insecurity and policy measures that can be adopted to overcome income and job insecurity. It discusses these issues at both macro and micro levels form the perspective of developing countries, considering a broad range of influences ranging from globalization to na...