Paul Dorosh’s research while affiliated with International Food Policy Research Institute and other places

Over the past decades, climate change has brought about numerous detrimental consequences for agricultural production in many countries, posing a substantial challenge to the economic well being of farmers while affecting national and international economies. Meteorological data specifically indicates that extreme weather events are occurring with unprecedented frequencies, intensities, and durations. This includes events associated with variations in the El Niño – Southern Oscillation of ocean currents, such as unusually dry weather in June through August in Nepal and other parts of South Asia. For example, during the El Niño year of 1992, a particularly severe drought occurred in Nepal, contributing in part to a 17.7 percent fall in rice production relative to the prior trend. Current indications are that another El Niño – related drought may already be underway in 2023 and into 2024. With the extreme weather events, global economies have experienced a number of recent shocks – for example those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts in countries such as the Ukraine and Russia that are important exporters of agricultural inputs and goods. As such, this research note explores the implications of a range of agricultural productivity shocks including but not limited to those resulting from a possible El Niño-related drought in 2023 and extending into early 2024 (coinciding with the monsoon and post-monsoon seasons).

We use economywide models to examine the economic recovery from COVID‐19 shocks in Bangladesh and Nepal during 2020–2026. Declining labor productivity, capital underutilization, consumption shifts, and international investment shocks had significant and differential sectoral and country‐level impacts in these countries. By 2026, GDP will be 6.9% and 13.9% lower in Bangladesh and Nepal, respectively, and the two countries will have an additional 3.3 million people in poverty compared to a no‐COVID baseline. Regaining economic and welfare losses will require substantial investments in key industrial, agricultural, and tourism sectors, although tough policy decisions will be required given high levels of public debt.

The Russia-Ukraine war's impact on food, fuel, and fertilizer prices is a major concern for global poverty and food insecurity. Despite numerous studies and editorials on the risks and challenges of the crisis, there is little quantitative analysis of its consequences for developing countries. We use national economywide models to measure the near-term impacts of the crisis on agrifood systems, poverty, and food insecurity in 19 countries. Despite wide variations across countries, results confirm the adverse impacts of the crisis, with a total 27.2 and 22.3 million more people pushed into poverty and hunger, respectively. Agrifood systems and poverty are more vulnerable to rising fuel and fertilizer prices, whereas hunger and diet quality are more affected by higher food prices.

In spite of substantial growth in agricultural GDP in the 1990s, rural poverty rates in Pakistan did not decline. This paper explores the reasons for this lack of correlation between increases in agricultural production and poverty reduction through an analysis of growth linkages using a 2001-02 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM)-based semi-inputoutput model. Model simulations indicate that expansion of traditional crop agriculture can significantly benefit rural poor farmers. However, because of skewed distribution of land and earnings from land, landless agricultural labourers and the rural non-farm poor (who, together, account for 61 percent of the rural poor) do not benefit directly from growth in the crop sector. In the absence of a change in the structure of rural incomes and employment, further measures will likely be needed for rapid poverty reduction in Pakistan, including greater efforts to boost the livestock sector, expansion of the rural non-farm economy (in addition to agricultural growth-induced linkage effects), and targeted interventions to the poorest rural households.

Concerns over the potential effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic have led to trade restrictions by major rice exporters, contributing to an average 25% increase in Thai and Vietnamese rice export prices between December 2019 and March–September 2020. This article assesses the consequences of these rice price increases in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where 99% of rice is imported. Utilizing data from a PNG 2018 rural household survey along with earlier national household survey data, we examine rice consumption patterns in PNG and estimate demand parameters for urban and rural households. Model simulations indicate that a 25% rise in the world price of rice would reduce total rice consumption in PNG by 14% and reduce rice consumption of the poor (bottom 40% of total household expenditure distribution) by 15%. Including the effects of a possible 12% decrease in household incomes because of the COVID‐19 related economic slowdown, rice consumption of the urban and rural poor fall by 20% and 17%, respectively. Maintaining functioning domestic supply chains of key staple goods is critical to mitigating the effects of global rice price increases, allowing urban households to increase their consumption of locally produced staples.

Although there is much empirical evidence of the importance of agricultureled economic growth, there is a renewed emphasis in development circles on the industrial sector as the main driver of growth, even for the low-income countries of sub-Saharan Africa. This article applies a simplified model of agricultural growth linkages to illustrate the importance of agricultural growth for increasing employment and accelerating poverty reduction in Ethiopia. Achieving rapid agricultural growth, however, will require the engagement of small commercial farmers, large enough to adopt new technologies and produce significant marketed surpluses, but small and numerous enough to have spending patterns that drive a large, vibrant rural non-farm sector.

Ethiopia is a highly agrarian economy, with a long history of substantial food insecurity. In recent years, however, the economy has seen substantial economic transformation, largely in the form of increased agricultural productivity and significant improvements in road infrastructure. But while these investments have contributed to impressive poverty reduction in recent years, structural transformation has been inhibited by the relatively slow development of an industrial sector, and modest rates of urbanization. Future development strategies will therefore need to search for the right balance between pro-poor investments in agriculture and rural development, and potentially more transformative investments in urban infrastructure and industry.