Stanford University

Food Security

Emerging Land Issues in African Agriculture: Implications for food security and poverty reduction strategies

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Despite the fact that sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 contains much of the world’s unutilized and underutilized arable land, a significant and growing share of Africa’s farm households live in densely populated areas. Based on two alternative spatial databases capable of estimating populations at the level of one square kilometer and distinguishing between arable and non-arable land, we find that in at least five of the 10 countries analyzed, 25 percent of the rural population resides in areas exceeding 500 persons per square kilometer, estimated by secondary sources as an indicative maximum carrying capacity for areas of rain-fed agriculture in the region. The apparent paradox of a large proportion of Africa’s rural population living in densely populated conditions amidst a situation of massive unutilized land is resolved when the unit of observation is changed from land units to people.

A review of nationally representative farm surveys shows a tendency of (1) declining mean farm size over time within densely populated smallholder farming areas; (2) great disparities in landholding size within smallholder farming areas, leading to highly concentrated and skewed patterns of farm production and marketed surplus; (3) half or more of rural farm households are either buyers of grain or go hungry because they are too poor to afford to buy food; most households in this category control less than one hectare of land; and (4) a high proportion of farmers in densely populated areas perceive that it is not possible for them to acquire more land through customary land allocation procedures, even in areas where a significant portion of land appears to be unutilized.

Ironically, there has been little recognition of the potential challenges associated with increasingly densely populated and land-constrained areas of rural Africa, despite the fact that a sizeable and increasing share of its rural population live in such areas. Inadequate access to land and inability to exploit available unutilized land are issues that almost never feature in national development plans or poverty reduction strategies. In fact, since the rise of world food prices after the mid-2000s, many African governments have made concerted efforts to transfer land out of customary tenure systems (where the majority of rural people reside) to the state or to private individuals who, it is argued, can more effectively exploit the productive potential of the land to meet national food security objectives. Such efforts have nurtured the growth of a relatively well-capitalized class of “emergent” African farmers. The growing focus on how best to exploit unutilized land in Africa has arguably diverted attention from the more central and enduring challenge of implementing agricultural development strategies that effectively address the continent’s massive rural poverty and food insecurity problems, which require recognizing the growing land constraints faced by much of its still agrarian-based population. The final section of the paper considers research and policy options for addressing these problems.

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Grants support research on health care, violence and technology in poorest areas

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More than 500,000 people live in Mathare, the second-largest collection of slums in Nairobi, Kenya. Crime and disease ravage the population, and shanties have no electricity or running water. But there’s one piece of technology that everyone seems to have, one which promises to bring much-needed improvements: the cell phone.

Cell phones are central to two of the eight most recent Global Underdevelopment Action Fund projects funded by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Both projects will be led by Joshua Cohen, a professor of political science, philosophy and law and the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society.

The first of Cohen’s projects will examine whether texting private and accurate health advice will increase awareness of risky sexual behavior among Mathare’s younger residents who face high rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Cohen's second project involves teaching women to use mobile technology to meet up with larger groups while traveling at night, which Cohen believes can led to a decrease in the number of assaults, muggings and rapes. Eventually, the hope is that the program can be taken over by Kenya’s police and expanded.

 Cell phone charging station in Mathare

Six other projects are receiving support from the third round of Global Underdevelopment Action Fund awards, amounting to a total of $265,000.

The funds will enable multidisciplinary teams led by Stanford faculty from across the university to perform policy-relevant research focused on global underdevelopment challenges.

The funded projects will have real world impact. They will help target tuberculosis, which kills more than 1 million people a year and hinders economic development in the hardest-hit regions, like parts of India. They evaluate the amount of resources necessary to improve test scores and lower anemia rates among China’s rural schoolchildren. They ensure that health care is accessible to people in the Arab world where countries are undergoing political transitions. And they evaluate the challenges and benefits of bringing solar power to areas in Africa where electricity is a rare commodity.

As varied as the eight projects are, each will train Stanford undergraduate or graduate students, stressing the importance that Stanford and FSI place on training the next generation of researchers and policy influencers.

The projects were selected by a faculty committee chaired by Stephen D. Krasner, FSI’s deputy director and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations.

The Action Fund is supported by FSI donors, matching funds from the Office of the President and FSI. The fund grew out of the institute’s 2010 conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development. This year’s follow-up conference further showcased FSI’s commitment to challenges posed by global underdevelopment with a focus on food security and health.

The award-winning projects and their principal investigators are:

  • Texting for Sexual Health: Effects of Information Provision and Common Knowledge on Health-Seeking Behavior in Kenya
    Joshua Cohen
    In hopes of increasing awareness that could minimize sexual health risks, the team will promote a mobile health counseling service, which will enable young people in Nairobi’s Mathare slums to receive private and reliable answers from health counselors through text messaging.
  • Can Mobile Phones Coordinate Community Action to Improve Women’s Safety in Slums?
    Joshua Cohen
    The program uses mobile technology to measure whether the number of assaults on women will decrease if they travel in groups. The project will evaluate whether this “safety in numbers” program can be taken over by Kenyan police.
  • Crime, Violence and Governance in Latin America: Sharing Data and Building a Web-Based Research Network to Expand Knowledge
    Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
    This project will build a systematically organized repository of research on crime, violence and citizen security in Latin America.
  • Tuberculosis Control and its Benefits to the Rural Poor
    Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert
    This study will determine the impact of improved TB control effects in India, which accounts for 20 percent of global TB incidence, and project economic outcomes from India’s TB epidemic over the next decade.
  • Paying for Performance to Improve Health in Rural China: Does Resource Scarcity Breed Innovation in Service Delivery?
    Grant Miller
    This study will evaluate whether large subsidies are necessary for improving social situations like lowering anemia rates or improving test scores.
  • Health and Political Reform in the Arab World
    Paul H. Wise
    Partnering with The Lancet journal and the American University of Beirut, the team will produce a series of articles on war, social change and health in the Arab world with a goal of improving health care in countries undergoing political transition.
  • Solar Lighting and Phone Charging in East Africa: Understanding Adoption, Business Models and Development Outcomes
    Frank Wolak
    This project will analyze new solar businesses in East Africa. Electricity is central to industry, health services and education, yet 1.5 billion people worldwide lack access. Recently, low-power solar energy sources in homes have appeared as viable options.
  • Understanding the Current Status of Medical Technology in Rural China
    Paul Yock
    This study will evaluate the use of medical technology in rural China in order to establish a baseline for future work and establish partnerships. The long-term goal is an analytical framework within which to understand the role of medical technology in Chinese health care.
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Adapting agriculture to a warmer world

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When it comes to climate change and its impacts on agriculture, we may know less than we think.

But according to David Lobell, Assistant Professor in Stanford’s Department of Environmental Earth System Science, acknowledging the gaps in our understanding could help us to more effectively prepare the world’s food system for a warmer future.

Lobell, who has built an impressive career around the study of climate change and its implications for global food security, addressed the topic of agricultural adaptation during a two-hour symposium held on the Stanford campus in early December. His presentation summarized the strengths and weaknesses of climate models in the context of global agriculture, and suggested broad strategies for preparing agriculture for climate change’s inevitable impacts.

Lobell began his talk by reaffirming some common beliefs. The Earth as a whole is unquestionably warming, he said. Precipitation intensity is increasing in high-rainfall areas, and the world’s driest regions are becoming drier.

“Think about the hottest day we currently experience in a 20-year period,” Lobell told listeners. “By mid-century, we’ll be seeing that hottest day every year, as opposed to every 20 years.” During the same period, soil moisture content in many of the world’s major agricultural areas will decrease by as much as 10 to 15 percent, while annual precipitation at the equator and high latitudes will increase by several inches per year.

At the global scale, Lobell said, climate change will have a net negative impact on existing agricultural systems. The world’s rainfed farms will become increasingly vulnerable to heat and water stress.  Growing ranges and seasons for heat-intolerant crops, such as wheat and sorghum, will contract. Although the high latitudes may see some gains from warmer temperatures and CO2 fertilization of certain crops, low-latitude regions – including South Asia and much of Africa – will suffer disproportionate yield losses as temperatures rise.

However, Lobell said that impacts aimed at local and national scales, as opposed to broad regions or the world as a whole, are much more difficult to predict. A moderate change in average rainfall across a continent could translate to drastic increases or decreases in individual countries. For example, while climate models suggest that Africa’s annual rainfall will change by less than 10 percent over the next 50 years, model projections show rainfall in the nation of Sengal changing by anywhere from five to 40 percent over the same period.

Additionally, Lobell said, forecasts of increasing climate variability are frequently overstated. “The number one misperception I hear is that climate change is going to mean more variability,” he noted.  In fact, model projections of year-to-year variability in temperature and precipitation cover a wide range. Some models do show large increases in variability over the next century – but others show a slight decrease.

Because we understand climate impacts best at the long-term and global scales, Lobell said, global responses that address long-term trends are the most likely to serve our future needs. He cautioned against approaches that prepare farmers for short-term variability, such as sudden floods or droughts, but fail to acknowledging the effects of steadily rising average temperatures. He also stressed the value of globally coordinated efforts, particularly those aimed at developing better heat and drought-tolerant crop varieties, to supplement local infrastructure projects.

 “We’re in a world where local resilience depends on global systems,” Lobell noted. He said that the interconnectedness of modern global food markets makes global trends, and global responses, increasingly relevant for local food security.

At both local and global levels, an effective response to climate change will require robust social institutions. Dr. Fatima Denton, Program Leader for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural research, stressed this point in her comments on Lobell’s presentation. “Climate change has really unmasked our governance challenges and the weaknesses in our institutions,” Denton said. “This is not just about biophysical processes…it’s about the development pathways that we choose.”

Lobell agreed. Climate change, he said, presents “an important opportunity for transformation.” He encouraged present and future leaders to think critically about all aspects of the relevant science and policy. “Be skeptical of what you hear,” he advised, “and educate yourself about what we do and don’t know.”

This was the sixth talk in FSE's Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series.

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12th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment: Environment & Security

The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) will present its 12th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment: Environment and Security, January 18-20, 2012 in Washington, DC.  

The Environment and Security Conference will provide a forum to explore the connections between environment and security issues, their common underlying scientific threads, and the policy and governance needed to address security risks posed by a rapidly changing environment.

The conference is expected to bring together over 1,000 attendees from the scientific, business, academic and environmental communities, as well as international, federal, and regional government officials. 

NCSE utilizes a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach to covene involved scientists and decision-makers from various sectors of society. The conferences include renowned speakers, topical symposia to explore issues more in depth, and breakout workshops to develop a set of recommendations on how to advance science and connect it to policy and decision-making.

FSE director Roz Naylor will be participating in a plenary session and symposium.

The first, Integrating Climate, Energy, Food, Water, and Health includes:

Moderator: Frank Sesno, Professor and Director, School of Media and Public Affairs, The George Washington University

  • Jeff Seabright, Vice President for Environment and Water Resources, The Coca-Cola Company

  • Geoff Dabelko, Director, Environmental Change and Security Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

  • Rosamond Naylor, Director of the Center on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University

The second plenary session is on Climate Change and Food Security and includes:

Moderator: Jonathan Shrier, Acting Special Representative, Global Food Security, U.S. Department of State

  • Dr. Marc Cohen, Senior Researcher on Humanitarian Policy and Climate Change, Oxfam America
  • Dr. Rosamond "Roz" Naylor, Director of the Center on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University
  • Dr. Mark Rosegrant, Division Director, Environment and Production Technology Division, IFPRI
  • Dr. David Battisti, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Tamaki Endowed Chair, University of Washington

Keynote speakers include Amory Lovins, Cofounder, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute and Thomas Friedman, Columnist, The New York Times.

Washington DC

Rosamond L. Naylor

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Senior Fellow, Emerita, Stanford Woods Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies,
William Wrigely Professor, Emerita, Department of Environmental Social Sciences
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Rosamond (Roz) Naylor is the William Wrigley Professor, Emerita, of Global Environmental Policy in the Doerr School of Sustainability; and founding Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on policies and practices to improve global food security and protect the environment on land and at sea. She has been involved in numerous field-level research projects around the world with her students and has published widely on issues related to global food systems, food policy, and aquaculture. She is the co-chair of The Blue Food Assessment, an international initiative aimed at providing a comprehensive scientific evaluation of the sustainability, nutrition, equity, and justice dimensions of aquatic foods cultured and captured in freshwater and marine environments within the global food system. She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), a Pew Marine Fellow, and a Leopold Leadership Fellow. She is also the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Aspen Global Change Institute and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Oceana. At Stanford, she teaches courses on The World Food Economy, Human Society and Environmental Change, and Food and Security.
 

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David S. Battisti

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Tamaki Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington
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David Battisti received a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences (1988) from the University of Washington. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin until 1990. Since then, he has been on the Faculty in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, and was the Director of JISAO from 1997-2003. Presently, he is the Tamaki Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the University's Earth Initiative.

David Battisti's research is focused on understanding the natural variability of the climate system. He is especially interested in understanding how the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, land and sea ice lead to variability in climate on time scales from seasonal to decades. His previous research includes coastal oceanography, the physics of the El Nino/Southern Osciallation (ENSO) phenomenon, midlatitude atmosphere/ocean variability and variability in the coupled atmosphere/sea ice system in the Arctic. Battisti is presently working to improve the El Nino models and their forecast skill, and to understand the mechanisms responsible for the drought cycles in the Sahel, and the decade-to-decade changes in the climate of the Pacific Northwest, including how the latter affects the snow pack in the Cascades and coastal ranges from Washington to Alaska. He is also working on the impacts of climate variability and climate change on food production in Mexico and Indonesia.

Battisti's recent interests are in paleoclimate: in particular, the mechanisms responsible for the remarkable "abrupt" global climate changes evident throughout the last glacial period.

Battisti has served on numerous international science panels, on Committees of the National Research Council. He served for five years as co-chair of the Science Steering Committee for the U.S. Program on Climate (US CLIVAR) and is co-author of several international science plans. He has published over 60 papers in peer-review journals in atmospheric sciences and oceanography, and twice been awarded distinguished teaching awards.

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Cimate Change and Agricultural Adaptation

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This paper was prepared for Stanford University’s Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series, hosted by the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Food policy makers are increasingly faced with the question of how to adapt to climate change. The increased attention on climate adaptation is partly related to the fact that greenhouse gas emissions and climate change show little sign of slowing, partly because of prospects for large sums of money devoted to adaptation, and partly because of well publicized recent weather events that have affected agricultural regions and rattled global food markets. A common and reasonable reaction from the food policy and agricultural community has been to argue that climate variations have always been a challenge to agriculture, and that climate change just makes addressing these variations more important. A logical conclusion from this perspective is to emphasize activities that help build resilience to unpredictable weather events, as well as to focus on the types of weather variables that exhibit a lot of year-to-year variability and cause the bulk of farmers’ concerns in current climate.

However reasonable as a starting point, this perspective is misguided and risks taking a challenging problem and making it even harder. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is fundamentally different from the natural variations driven by internal dynamics in the climate system. Indeed, predicting the course of climate change is less like predicting the weather next week than it is like predicting that summer will be warmer than winter. Progress in climate science has shown that the most indelible hallmarks of AGW will be increased occurrence and severity of high temperature and heavy rainfall extremes in all regions, and increased frequency and severity of drought in sub-tropical regions. Changes in the timing and amount of seasonal rainfall also appear likely in some regions, but at a much smaller pace relative to natural variability. In all of these cases, predictions from climate science are most robust at broader spatial scales, with considerable uncertainty in predicting changes for any single country.

Meanwhile, progress in crop science has shown that most crops show fairly rapid declines in productivity as temperatures rise above critical thresholds, with as much as 10 percent yield loss for +1°C of warming in some locations. Both sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia appear particularly prone to productivity losses from climate change, in part because major staples in these regions are often already grown well above their optimum temperature.

Approaches to climate adaptation should recognize these realities, and should not equate anticipating climate changes with the considerably harder task of predicting next year’s weather. Predicting and building resilience to climate variability still remain important goals for agricultural development, but adaptation efforts should balance these activities with those focused more on the specific threats presented by climate change. Heat tolerant crop varieties and strategies to deal with heavy rainfall provide two examples of important needs. Similarly, balance is needed between the local-scale efforts that attract most of adaptation investment currently, and regional and global networks to develop needed technologies. Given the greater certainty of climate changes at broader scales, as well as the positive track record of international networks for crop breeding, investments in these global systems are very likely to deliver substantial adaptation benefits. Finally, given the downward pressures that climate change will exert on smallholder farm productivity in sub-Saharan Africa, and the critical role productivity gains play in catalyzing an escape from poverty, speeding the pace of investment in African agriculture can also be viewed as a good bet for climate adaptation.

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Fighting hunger in Africa with new methods of irrigation

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Rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa live under risky conditions. Many grow low-value cereal crops that depend on a short rainy season, a practice that traps them in poverty and hunger.

But reliable access to water could change the farmers' perilous situation. Stanford scientists are calling for investments in small-scale irrigation projects and hydrologic mapping to help buffer the growers from the erratic weather and poor crop yields that are expected to worsen with climate change in the region.

The potential for increased irrigation is there, said Jennifer Burney, a fellow at Stanford's Center on Food Security and Environment at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Burney's team partnered with the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) to measure economic and nutritional impacts of solar-powered drip-irrigated gardens on villages in West Africa's Sudano-Sahel region. Burney will present the group's work on small-scale irrigation Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"Irrigation is really appealing in that it lets you do a lot of things to break this cycle of low productivity that leads to low income and malnutrition," said Burney.

Modern irrigation often means multi-billion-dollar projects like damming rivers and building canals. But Burney says that these projects have not reached sub-Saharan Africa because countries lack the capital and ability to carry out big infrastructure projects.

A different approach, gaining popularity in sub-Saharan Africa, involves cooperation. Individuals or groups, called smallholders, organize to farm small plots and ensure their access to irrigation. These projects allow farmers to grow during the dry season and produce profitable, high-nutrition crops like fruits and vegetables in addition to the cereal crops they already grow.

Still, only 4 percent of cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated.

Smallholder irrigation

Burney and her colleagues' work in two northern Benin villages is an example of successful investment in smallholder irrigation. They worked with women's cooperative agricultural groups to install three solar-powered drip irrigation systems. Drip irrigation conserves water by delivering it directly to the base of plants. The technique also reduces fertilizer runoff.

The team surveyed 30 households in each village and found that solar drip irrigation increased standards of living and increased vegetable consumption to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommended daily allowance. By selling the vegetables, households were able to purchase staples and meat during the dry season.

Successful smallholder irrigation projects have high investment returns, said Burney. Her team has seen real success from irrigation projects – like those in Benin – that provide enough returns for women to send kids to school or buy small business equipment like a sewing machine or market stall.

"That's when I think it really becomes a ladder out of poverty," Burney said.

Lessons for success

For solar technology projects to be successful, Burney said, just dropping in and giving people irrigation kits doesn't work. Communities need access to a water source and need to see the benefits of a project.

"You need the technology and management and the water access, all together," said Burney. "Our solar project incorporates all of that."

According to Burney, smallholders need not limit themselves to solar irrigation systems. "Solar is great if you have an unreliable fuel," she said. "But if you're someplace that's connected to the grid, an electrical pump would more economical."

"There are a lot of different solutions that involve many different kinds of water harvesting," Burney said. "Groundwater, rainwater, surface water, and there are a lot of places in the Sahel, like Niger, for example, where there are artesian wells." The Sahel is a transition zone between the Sahara Desert and the savannas further south.

Given the diversity of water resources in West Africa, Burney suggests that nongovernmental organizations and governments prioritize detailed hydrologic mapping in the region. Otherwise, the cost of geophysical surveys and finding water sources, especially unseen groundwater, could become an insurmountable barrier for farm communities.

"It needs to be really detailed, comprehensive, usable information that's out there for everybody to be able to take advantage of," she said.

Burney says that both of the benefits that farmers get from irrigation systems –growing outside of the rainy season and producing more diverse, profitable crops – are important for adapting to climate change.

"You can produce more value on less land in most cases and not be as beholden to the whims of the rainy season," she said. Having more disposable income also will reduce vulnerability to hunger and malnutrition. "Economic development can be a form of adaptation," she said.

Rosamond L. Naylor, director of Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project were collaborators on the project.

Sarah Jane Keller is a science-writing intern at the Stanford News Service.


 

Jennifer Burney is scheduled to speak at the fall meeting of the AGU in San Francisco on Dec. 7 in Room 2008 (Moscone West), in Session B32B, Feeding the World While Sustaining the Planet: Building Sustainable Agriculture Within the Earth System II, which runs from 10:20 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. Her talk, "Smallholder Irrigation and Crop Diversification Under Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence and Potential for Simultaneous Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation," is scheduled from 12:04 to 12:17 p.m.

 

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Seeds of Sustainability: Lessons from the Birthplace of the Green Revolution

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Seeds of Sustainability is a groundbreaking analysis of agricultural development and transitions toward more sustainable management in one region. An invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, and students alike, it examines new approaches to make agricultural landscapes healthier for both the environment and people.

The Yaqui Valley is the birthplace of the Green Revolution and one of the most intensive agricultural regions of the world, using irrigation, fertilizers, and other technologies to produce some of the highest yields of wheat anywhere. It also faces resource limitations, threats to human health, and rapidly changing economic conditions. In short, the Yaqui Valley represents the challenge of modern agriculture: how to maintain livelihoods and increase food production while protecting the environment.

Renowned scientist Pamela Matson and colleagues from leading institutions in the U.S. and Mexico spent fifteen years in the Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico addressing this challenge. Seeds of Sustainability represents the culmination of their research, providing unparalleled information about the causes and consequences of current agricultural methods. Even more importantly, it shows how knowledge can translate into better practices, not just in the Yaqui Valley, but throughout the world.

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Stanford-Cargill partnership strengthens to address food security issues

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Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) has received a $2 million grant from Cargill, a second gift from the company that raises its total contribution to FSE to $5 million over 10 years.

The announcement was made Nov. 10 at a dinner celebrating the launch of FSE as a full-scale research center. FSE has more than doubled in size in five years. Because of its growth and increasing importance of food security issues at Stanford and worldwide, it became an official center in September.

“The center’s rapid growth would not have been possible without the generous support of Cargill,” FSE Director and William Wrigley Senior Fellow Rosamond L. Naylor said. “Cargill’s initial investment provided seed-funding for the bold, new research and teaching that was happening at FSE while keeping our lights on and the staff running during our critical years of early development.”

A $3 million grant from Cargill in 2008 jump-started a visiting fellows program at FSE and helped build the infrastructure to support the center’s research.

The new grant will continue to provide program support, but will also be used to hire younger faculty and scholars to Stanford to work within the new Center.

Stanford-Cargill partnership

Stanford's partnership with Cargill extends back to 1976 when Cargill endowed Walter P. Falcon, then Director of Stanford's Food Research Institute and now FSE Deputy Director, with the Helen C. Farnsworth Professorship in International Agricultural Policy. The gift was intended to strengthen Stanford's work in agricultural policy, specifically as it relates to the international grain economy. FSI senior fellow Scott Rozelle now holds the Helen C. Farnsworth chair.

FSE and Cargill remain committed to helping feed a growing population while preserving the planet's natural resources. FSE is an applied group focused on providing real solutions to important food and agricultural issues.

“Poverty is the main issue driving food insecurity—it’s a question of access rather than food availability,” Naylor said.

FSE’s partnership with Cargill has demonstrated how Stanford-based research can be relevant to the private sector. FSE is conducting ongoing research on oil palm and land use issues in Indonesia that is helping inform and shape policy. Work on aquaculture feeds in China is another overlapping area of interest, as are ongoing assessments of biofuels in the U.S., Africa and Asia. Both have a stake in better understanding climate change impacts on agriculture and food commodity price volatility.

“It is clear to us at FSE—and increasingly to leadership of Stanford—that global food security will remain a critical issue within international policy circles,” said Naylor. “With support like the grant from Cargill, we are confident that Stanford can play a leading role in shaping the future policy discourse.”

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Smallholder irrigation as a poverty alleviation tool in sub-Saharan Africa

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Promotion of smallholder irrigation is cited as a strategy for enhancing income generation and food security for sub-Saharan Africa’s poor farmers, but what makes this technology a successful poverty alleviation tool? In the short run, the technology should pave the way for increased consumption, asset accumulation, and reduced persistent poverty among users. Over the longer run, it should lead to institutional feedbacks that support sustained economic development and nutritional improvements. Our conceptual model and review of case studies reveal the importance of three sub-components of irrigation technology—access, distribution, and use—and the ways in which the design of the technology itself can either bridge, or succumb to, institutional gaps. These critical features are illustrated in an experimental evaluation of a solar-powered drip irrigation project in rural northern Benin, which provides a controlled study of technology impacts in the Sudano-Sahel. The combined evidence highlights the technical and institutional requirements for project success and points to two important areas of research in the scale-up of any small-scale irrigation strategy: the risk behavior of water users, and the evolution of institutions that either support or obstruct project replication over space and time.

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World Development
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Focusing on hunger, health care and politics, experts gather at Stanford

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Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, set the tone for a daylong conference on Nov. 10 that explored the causes of global poverty and how researchers, governments and philanthropists can lift the world’s most vulnerable from chronic underdevelopment. 


Part 1: Jeff Raikes, CEO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses the connections among health, economic development and political stability. 

Part 2: Stanford’s Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar leads a panel on “Food, Security and Global Politics in the 21st Century.”  

Part 3: Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations, discusses the global challenges of food security. 

Part 4: Stanford’s Rosamond Naylor moderates a conversation about “Food Security and the Control of Infectious Disease.” 

Part 5: Stanford’s Grant Miller joins panelists discussing vaccines and their role in world security.		  
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