Michigan State University (MSU), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and partners in the Nigerian Agricultural Policy sector are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for the Second National Conference of the Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project, to be held in Abuja, on 18-20 June 2018. The overall theme of the Conference is “Collaborative Research for Agricultural Policy in Nigeria”.
The conference is organized as part of the USAID-Nigeria funded, Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project, a joint effort between MSU’s Department of Agricultural Food and Resource Economics and IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program. The goal of the project is to promote inclusive agricultural productivity growth, improved nutritional outcomes, and enhanced livelihood resilience for men and women in Nigeria through an improved policy enabling environment. The goal will be achieved through increased capacity of Nigerians to generate and analyze information and to formulate evidence-based policy options for decision makers and other stakeholders. This will improve policy processes driven by empirical evidence and based on active stakeholder dialogue. The conference will bring together researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in the Nigerian agricultural sector.
We are calling for papers within the following key research and policy areas:
- Technology Adoption & Agricultural Productivity (issues related to agricultural mechanization, irrigation, agricultural storage infrastructure, improving seed varieties and promoting key priority crops/industries among others)
- Food System Transformation and Value Chains (issues related to the diverse consumption patterns of Nigerians beyond starchy staples into animal protein (fish, poultry products, and beef), fruits and vegetables and processed foods; it also includes issues related to the implications of these consumption patterns for key value chains necessary to meet the growing demand)
- Nutrition, Food Safety and Food Security (drivers of malnutrition, food systems, leveraging on agricultural transformation for improving food and nutrition strategy in rural Nigeria)
- Land Governance (re-examining land policy in Nigeria for agricultural transformation, implications for sustainable land tenure administration systems, land access and its relation to food security, conflict between Pastoralists and Crop Farmers etc.)
- Climate Change (implications of climate change on cropping systems and the broader food system in Nigeria, agricultural sector resilience and climate change adaptation etc.)
- Public Agricultural Expenditures (drivers of public agricultural expenditures, public investment’s agricultural welfare effects)
- Youth Employment (determinants of agricultural sector youth employment, incentive mechanisms and youth training programs, the land access-migration decisions-youth employment nexus)
- Political Economy Considerations (the political economy of land governance reforms, the political economy of informal food retail trade)
- Agricultural Sector and the Macroeconomy (macroeconomic factor influence on agricultural program sustainability, monitoring & evaluating the agricultural sector’s role in macroeconomic adjustment)
Paper Submission Information
We invite all research on the topics above. We welcome, in particular, paper submissions by young Nigerian researchers (graduate students and junior faculty members). We also welcome, in particular, papers by young researchers from the Feed the Future focus states (see Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi, and Niger). Papers can be submitted in a provisional version or as long abstracts, but must contain a clear presentation of the results obtained, and a reference list to be considered by the conference scientific committee. They must be written and presented in English and should be submitted in WORD format to:
IFPRI-MSU-NAPPConference@cgiar.org
The first page of the paper should include: (1) submission title, (2) author/s’ name/s and affiliation, (3) abstract, (4) keywords (no more than three), (5) JEL classification, and (6) detailed contact information (first and last name, mailing address, phone number, email address) of the corresponding author. Please ensure that the document has been carefully edited for grammatical errors.
Key Deadlines
- 27 April 2018: Submission deadline (draft papers/long abstracts due)
- 25 May 2018: Final decision on selected papers communicated to corresponding authors
- 15 June 2018: Final papers due
- 18-20 June 2018: Presentation of selected papers at the conference.
Travel reimbursement
Funding opportunities are limited. The Conference organizers will cover relevant travel expenses and hotel accommodation for one presenter of a selected paper (where appropriate) coming from outside FCT Abuja. For joint papers, only one author (paper presenter) per selected paper will be supported to participate in the conference. Further information about conference logistics will be available in due course.
