IFPRI’s partnership with India began more than 40 years ago, in the wake of the Green Revolution. Over the last four decades, IFPRI’s research in India has addressed the most pressing issues of the times. In the late 1970s, as food production in India stagnated and the population grew, the IFPRI-India working relationship focused on technology and rural development. In the 1980s, IFPRI delved deeply into India’s agriculture sector—on issues such as foodgrain production, subsidies, dairy development, and livestock demand—while in the 1990s IFPRI’s work focused on such topics as public expenditure and poverty in rural India and incentives and constraints in the transformation of Indian agriculture. Research since the 2000s has expanded to include nutrition, public investment, climate change, value chains, capacity strengthening, and biofortification.
IFPRI’s critical financial and logistical support from the Government of India, especially through the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, has led to substantial impacts on the ground.
IFPRI has collaborated with its partners in India to provide solutions to reducing malnutrition and stunting by examining the multiple pathways that can affect nutrition outcomes. Partnerships and Opportunities to Strengthen and Harmonize Actions for Nutrition in India (POSHAN) serves as IFPRI’s primary platform for research and policy engagement on nutrition in India. POSHAN is supporting the use of data and evidence by policymakers and field partners to improve nutrition decisions and actions and is analyzing regions within India that have made progress in improving the reach of nutrition interventions and outcomes. The outcomes from this research include support in the development and rollout of the Nutrition Action Plan by the government of Odisha and contributions to India’s Three-Year Action Agenda (2018–2020), which were recognized by the National Institute for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) - the premier policy think tank of the Government of India that provided both directional and policy inputs.
Furthermore, IFPRI’s research on agricultural production, pricing, and subsidies is informing the Government of India on exploring innovations, policies, and approaches that will transform India’s agriculture sector as it strives to meet the food needs of its people.
IFPRI’s study of pulse value chains highlighted limited availability of quality seeds as a major barrier to increasing pulse production, which influenced the Indian Government’s new series of programs, launched in partnership with farmers, to increase production of quality pulse seeds. India’s government accepted IFPRI’S guidance on raising pulse minimum support prices as well as other recommendations —on raising pulse production and creating a small strategic reserve of pulses to discourage speculation by traders, for example—many of which have already been implemented.
These are just a few highlights of a longstanding and fruitful collaboration, which will continue to provide evidence that can help reduce poverty and improve food security and nutrition in the country.
For more outcome stories, download the brochure Enhancing nutrition and ending poverty: IFPRI and India (PDF 793.5 kb).
