Issue #34, June - July 2020
Welcome to the June-July 2020 edition of PIM News! In this issue, we are pleased to share PIM’s 2019 Highlights report (and a full 2019 Annual Report), as well as the CGIAR Performance Report 2019.
Our 2020 research program is advancing, with progress featured in selected publications and blogs below. You will notice an increasing number of COVID-19-related outputs, and this will continue for the coming months. Please check out our website for more information on COVID-19 research within PIM, as well as the CGIAR COVID-19 landing page and the new CGIAR COVID-19 Hub.
Last but not least, mark your calendars for our next virtual seminar on COVID-19’s short-term impacts on economies, food systems, and poverty in African and Asian countries on August 11 (more details will be shared in a separate announcement shortly)!
Frank Place
PIM Director
See an excerpt with our featured recent publications below and read the full issue here>>
COVID-19 and the food system: Setback or opportunity for gender equality?
Food Security
Shocks or crises can exacerbate or reduce gender gaps, and so can policy responses to mitigate the impact of these crises or shocks. Catherine Ragasa and Isabel Lambrecht offer perspectives and available country examples on how the COVID-19 crisis and responses to the crisis could be a setback or offer opportunities for gender equality in the food system. [Open Access]
Impact of COVID-19 on China's macroeconomy and agri-food system: An economy-wide multiplier model analysis
China Agricultural Economic Review
In the first systematic assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on China's agri-food system in terms of value added and employment, Yumei Zhang, Xinshen Diao, Kevin Z. Chen, Sherman Robinson, and Shenggen Fan consider three phases of lockdown, recovery and normal phases in order to capture the full potential cost of COVID-19. [Extended abstract]
Who has the better story? On the narrative foundations of agricultural development dichotomies
World Development
Analyzing narratives is important but has been neglected in agricultural policy analysis. To address this gap, Jonathan Mockshell and Regina Birner combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with Narrative Policy Analysis to examine agricultural policy discourses in Senegal. Of two advocacy coalitions identified (“agricultural support coalition” and an “agricultural support critique coalition”) one tells straightforward stories, while the other one formulates mostly critiques. The authors examine possible meta-narratives, which take arguments of both coalitions into account and may have the potential to overcome the long-standing dichotomy in agricultural development. [Open Access]
Measuring time use in developing country agriculture: Evidence from Bangladesh and Uganda
Feminist Economics
Greg Seymour, Hazel Malapit, and Agnes Quisumbing discuss the challenges associated with implementing time-use surveys among agricultural households in developing countries and offer advice on best practices for two common measurement methods: stylized questions and time diaries. Authors find that in Bangladesh and Uganda, there are systematic differences between time-use estimates obtained using stylized questions and time diaries and suggest that learning from non-economics disciplines, including research on quality of time, would lead to richer insights into gendered time-use patterns. [Open Access]
The intertemporal evolution of agriculture and labor over a rapid structural transformation: Lessons from Vietnam
Food Policy
Yanyan Liu, Christopher Barrett, Trinh Pham, and William Violette combine nationally representative household and labor force survey data from 1992 to 2016 to provide a detailed description of rural labor market evolution and how it relates to the structural transformation of rural Vietnam, especially within the agricultural sector. Authors find limited employment creation potential of agriculture, especially for youth. As rural households rely more heavily on the labor market, human capital accumulation (rather than land endowments) have become the key correlate of improvements in rural household well-being. [Open Access]
Do community seed banks contribute to the social-ecological resilience of communities?
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability
In a case study from western Guatemala, Anna Porcuna-Ferrer, Valentin Fiala, Bernhard Freyer, Jacob van Etten, Ronnie Vernooy, and Lorenz Probst find that while community seed banks contributed to strengthening the social-ecological resilience of the local communities, the scope of CSBs’ action was constrained by wider socio-economic trends, including social divisions, out-migration of youth, and a change in livelihood strategies. The authors conclude that for CSBs to effectively strengthen social-ecological resilience in the future, they should be continuously adapted to the local context. [Abstract]
A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration
FTA Working Paper
Despite the high level of political engagement and the wide range of organizations involved in restoration projects from local to global levels, beyond some success stories, restoration is not happening at scale. To address this issue, three CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) – Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA); Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) – decided to bring together their expertise in a joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on restoration. [Download]