To celebrate this milestone, on November 18 we are hosting a special event in Washington, DC, (which will be live-streamed), “IFPRI at 40: Looking Back, Looking Forward.” During this day-long event, a fascinating group of people from many sectors and places—policymakers, partners, donors, staff and alumnae, and other friends of IFPRI—will come together to discuss how food policy has evolved over the decades and how it is likely to look in the future.
Progress in science, considerable public investments, and policies backing agriculture paved the way for the Green Revolution. Famine in India leads to the introduction of high-yielding wheat in 1963 by Dr. Norman Borlaug, "the father of the Green Revolution." In 1968, hybrid rice in India is shown to yield 10 times the yield of traditional rice. The Green Revolution was just one facet of a much larger agricultural transformation in the late 20th century.
The CGIAR originally supported four centers: the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
A sudden 36 million ton decline in world grain production sparked this world food crisis.
The world population in 1975 reaches 4,068,109,000 with more than half of the world's people living in Asia. More than 400,000,000 people live in Africa and nearly 322,000,000 people live in Latin America.
IFPRI is incorporated on March 5, 1975 as a District of Columbia non-profit, non-stock corporation.
On May 28, 1975, ECOWAS was founded.
On August 15, 1975, IFPRI begins work with 25 full-time staff members. Dale Hathaway is named the first Director General. IFPRI's vision is to create a world free of hunger and poverty. IFPRI's initial research focuses on policies that affect developing countries in four areas: trends and statistics, production policy, consumption policy, and trade policy.
"Meeting Food Needs in the Developing World: The Location and Magnitude of the Task in the Next Decade”
The Lomé Convention represents first trade agreement between Europe and developing countries
IFPRI determines through research that some 45-70 million tons of additional food is needed to fill global calorie gap.
China implements the Household Responsibility System in which parcels of collective land are allocated to farm households, leading to dramatic increases in food production and reductions in poverty. The per capita incomes of rural people double in just five years.
IFPRI starts a longstanding and multifaceted research project in Bangladesh, including direct policy support. IFPRI research plays a role in the decision to abolish rural rationing, and identifies ways the government could more effectively target food subsidies for the poor. Other research includes price subsidization, diversification, capacity strengthening, and advisory services.
Established in 1979, China's one-child policy officially takes effect.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which describes five cases of a rare lung infection in young, otherwise healthy, gay men living in Los Angeles, California.
IFPRI joins the CGIAR, with it comes a bigger budget and formal recognition of its international status by the US government through the signing of Executive Order 12359 by President Ronald Reagan.
The worst famine to hit the country in a century, it led to more than 400,000 deaths.
IFPRI research on government subsidies in Egypt includes the publication of the research report, "Food Subsidies in Egypt: Their impact on foreign exchange and trade" by Grant Scobie (1983) and "The Effects of the Egyptian Food Ration and Subsidy System on Income Distribution and Consumption" by Joachim von Braun et al.
A Bangladeshi government ordinance, the Grameen Bank, was authorized, establishing it as an independent bank. The concept of microcredit is invented.
In a 10-year span, the world population increases by more than 800 million people. In Africa, an increase of nearly 140 million; in Asia, the increase is 500 million; and in Latin America, the population grew by 180 million people.
IFPRI begins a 9-year project in Pakistan, maintaining an office in Islamabad. The results of IFPRI’s research on “ration shops” distributing subsidized flour helped influence the government’s decision in 1987 to abolish the wheat ration shop system. The result: an estimated savings through 1991 of US$ 136 million.
Agricultural Change and Rural Poverty: Variations on a Theme by Dharm Narain, John W. Mellor and Gunvant M. Desai (eds.), Johns Hopkins University Press for IFPRI.
“Doi Moi” land tenure reforms initiated in Vietnam shift the focus of rural development from collectives to household production, helping reduce rural poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. From 1993 to 1998 the share of people living in poverty falls by 21 percent and the rate of stunting among children under five declines from 53 to 33 percent.
"Food Subsidies in Developing Countries: Costs, Benefits, and Policy Options," edited by Per Pinstrup-Andersen (Johns Hopkins University Press).
Computer Scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web, allowing documents to be connected and users to search the Internet for information.
The FAO says that 1,015,000,000 people in the world are undernourished. They comprise 19 percent of the world population.
"The Green Revolution Reconsidered: The Impact of High-yielding Rice Varieties in South India" by Peter BR Hazell and C. Ramasamy (Johns Hopkins University Press for IFPRI).
"A policy agenda for famine prevention in Africa" by Joachim von Braun is published. Research for this report was begun in the aftermath of severe famines in several African countries in 1985.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Summit and Earth Summit, was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3- 14 in 1992.
USAID funds IFPRI to explore how the CGIAR can help in the fight against mineral and vitamin deficiencies.
FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) convene the first International Conference on Nutrition (ICN) in Rome—the first global conference devoted solely to addressing the world's nutrition problems. Representatives from 159 countries, 15 United Nations organizations, 144 nongovernmental organizations, including IFPRI, participate.
Initial objectives of the initiative are to 1. seek to develop and promote a shared vision and consensus for action for meeting food needs while reducing poverty and protecting the environment; and 2. generate information and encourage debate to influence action by national governments, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, international development institutions, and other elements of civil society.
The CGIAR Systemwide Programme on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) is established. IFPRI is the convening center.
Twenty years after the founding of IFPRI, the global population reaches 5,674,380,000 people. There are about 707,000,000 people in Africa and 481,000,000 people in Latin America. Asia is home to the largest population with over 3 billion people.
IFPRI begins extensive research in Vietnam. Research includes livestock, fruit and vegetable studies, an agriculture sector review, income diversification, and poverty in the northern uplands. For example, an impact assessment of IFPRI research on rice policy shows positive influence on the welfare of the country. Simulations by Nick Minot and others showed that relaxing the country’s export quota for rice would raise rice prices by 5–23 percent in different regions of Vietnam, improving the country’s welfare without increasing poverty. Vietnam is now a major player in the world rice trade.
IMPACT—the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade—was developed at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1995 the first results using IMPACT were published as a 2020 Vision discussion paper, Global Food Projections to 2020: Implications for Investment.
The conference, "A 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment" is held in Washington, D.C.
UN Conference on Women in Beijing sets global agenda for the advancement of women’s status and empowerment in development. IFPRI staff participate in this landmark event.
CGIAR Micronutrients Project (precursor to HarvestPlus) initiated with funding from DANIDA, with IFPRI as the lead.
Building on work begun in the late 1980s, IFPRI opens an office in China.
The World Food Summit features the Rome Declaration on World Food Security. "We pledge our political will and our common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015.”
The Government of Mexico introduces an innovative anti-poverty program called PROGRESA (later Oportunidades) that provides assistance to extremely poor households through conditional cash transfers (CCTs) made to the mothers in the household, on the condition that children and adolescents attend school, infants receive micronutrient supplements, mothers attend sessions on nutrition and health practices, and all family members have regular health and nutrition checkups. Prior IFPRI research and research by IFPRI evaluation team members played a role in the design process. PROGRESA requested that IFPRI undertake an initial evaluation of PROGRESA in 1998–2000, which led to its scaling up.
Google is founded in Menlo Park, California.
The Second CGIAR-wide Conference on Nutrition, organized by the CGIAR Micronutrients Project is held at IRRI. Biofortification research is featured.
At the Millennium Summit in September 2000 the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration. In so doing, they committed their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and set out targets that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) launches. ASTI is a source of information on agricultural research and development systems across the developing world.
The Regional Network on HIV/AIDS, Livelihoods, and Food Security (RENEWAL) was launched in 2001. Facilitated by IFPRI, RENEWAL is a regional network-of-networks. Currently active in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia, RENEWAL comprises national networks of food- and nutrition-relevant organizations together with partners in AIDS and public health.
According to the FAO, 930 million people in the world are undernourished. They make up 15 percent of the world population.
We'd love to hear from you. Please send questions or feedback to the below email addresses.
Before contacting us, you may wish to visit our FAQs page which has lots of useful info on Tiki-Toki.
We can be contacted by email at: hello@tiki-toki.com.
You can also follow us on twitter at twitter.com/tiki_toki.
If you are having any problems with Tiki-Toki, please contact us as at: help@tiki-toki.com
Close