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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk, and Resilience

Photo credit: Emilia Tjernström, UC Davis

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience (MRR) at UC Davis develops and tests financial and market innovations that take the most promising agricultural tools for rural families in developing economies from the lab to the field. Operating with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), our mission is to generate and transfer knowledge and innovations that promote resilience and empower rural families, communities and markets to share in inclusive agricultural growth. Learn more at basis.ucdavis.edu.

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Posts
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2 people on chairs talking

MRR Innovation Lab 2021 Call for Proposals for Research on Food Security and Resilience

Submit proposals for research projects that generate innovations that will bolster resilience, keeping rural individuals, households, communities and markets in positions of economic viability

Agrilinks Team

MRR Innovation Lab

Feb 24, 2021
Opportunities
individuals in field

The Key to Building Resilience in Rural Communities: Women Entrepreneurs

A research collaboration in Samburu, Kenya is helping women to build up their assets and to keep them in spite of shocks like severe drought.
profile image of Wendy Chamberlin

MRR Innovation Lab

Wendy Chamberlin

Jul 14, 2020
COVID-19 Climate and Natural Resources Education and Extension Markets and Trade Gender Policy and Governance Resilience
Woman collects harvest.

Generating Resilience+ to Reduce Poverty and Spur Agricultural Growth

Jun 03, 2020 online

For many rural families in developing economies, a single drought or flood can create immediate economic distress as well as lingering effects that can last generations. Even the risk of...

Food Safety Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Resilience
Research team explaining index-based livestock insurance in Ethiopia

Improving Financial Tools so Rural Families in Ethiopia Can Better Cope with Drought

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience has just launched a new project in Ethiopia that tests a new way to ensure all families benefit from...

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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk, and Resilience

Feb 20, 2020
Climate and Natural Resources Markets and Trade Resilience
Satellite image

Leveraging Machine Learning to Improve Livestock Insurance for Pastoralist Families

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), has been used to build index insurance, a type of insurance that avoids the high costs of verifying losses individually. Drought Watch is a new...

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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk, and Resilience

Dec 06, 2019
Climate and Natural Resources Resilience
Family in Samburu, Kenya playing SimPastoralist to learn about livestock index insurance

A Digital Game to Improve How Livestock Index Insurance Promotes Resilience to Drought

SimPastoralist is a digital app the MRR Innovation Lab is using in northern Kenya to explain index-based livestock insurance while collecting data that can help design insurance that responds better...

MRR Innovation Lab

Alex Russell

Dec 05, 2019
Climate and Natural Resources Education and Extension Resilience

How an Agricultural Extension Program Reduced Malaria Infections in Uganda

Agricultural extension, which takes the best information on technology, inputs and practices directly to farmers, may spread benefits beyond higher yields. In Uganda, a large-scale program also reduced malaria infections...

MRR Innovation Lab

Alex Russell

Oct 01, 2019
Education and Extension Gender Policy and Governance Youth
research survey

MRR Innovation Lab 2019 Call for Proposals for Research on Food Security and Resilience

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience at UC Davis invites researchers at U.S. universities to submit proposals for four-year research projects that develop or testing...

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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk, and Resilience

Sep 19, 2019
Agricultural Productivity Climate and Natural Resources Education and Extension Markets and Trade Gender Nutrition Policy and Governance Resilience Youth Opportunities
rural Colombia

Promoting Recovery and Resilience During Conflict in Colombia

In over sixty years of armed conflict in Colombia, more than 220,000 have died and millions have been displaced, creating poverty and hardship that could last for generations. New research...

MRR Innovation Lab

Alex Russell

May 16, 2019
Policy and Governance Resilience
Farmer kneeling with chickens

Developing Advanced Index Insurance for Small-Scale Farmers in Ghana

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access has just launched a new project in partnership with the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP) to improve the quality...

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Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk, and Resilience

Mar 13, 2019
Agricultural Productivity Climate and Natural Resources Markets and Trade Resilience

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About us
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Mission

The MRR Innovation Lab focuses the most advanced tools in development economics and related fields on three core themes:

  • Resilient Escapes from Poverty: Bundled programs that can have a bigger and more lasting impact on persistent poverty than the sum of their parts.
  • Financial and Agronomic Innovations for Inclusive Growth and Resilience: Expanding the potential of insurance, stress-tolerant seeds and other tools to manage the risk of drought, flood or other disasters.
  • Resilient Systems for Broadly-based Agricultural Growth: Ensuring that markets and other social systems are competitive and do not bypass women and young people.

In addition to funding research and building the capacity of local institutions, we translate our work into accessible policy documents and sponsor outreach events that integrate our findings into a coherent and effective voice about priorities and options for governments, NGOs and others working to reduce poverty and increase prosperity worldwide. Learn more at basis.ucdavis.edu.

Lead Organization

University of California, Davis

Focus Countries

Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda

Partners

Forthcoming

Project staff

Michael R. Carter, Director, [email protected]

Tara Chiu, Associate Director, [email protected]

Alex Russell, Strategic Communications Manager, [email protected]

Sophie Javers, Policy Engagement Coordinator, [email protected]

Stay in touch

Website: https://basis.ucdavis.edu

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/MRRInnovLab

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/feed-the-future-ama-innovation-lab/

AMA Update e-news: https://basis.ucdavis.edu/sign-mrr-innovation-lab-updates

Resources
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Evidence Insight: A Mobile Phone Directory Connects Farmers and Enterprises in Tanzania

A printed phone directory in Tanzania had significant impacts by connecting small-scale farmers with agriculture-related enterprises. The project’s results suggest directory services have substantial value for agriculture.

 

Report: Bundling Innovative Risk Management Technologies to Accelerate Agricultural Growth and Improve Nutrition

This report summarizes the impacts of a 2014-2019 RCT spanning Mozambique and Tanzania in partnership with CIMMYT to test the impacts of bundling an innovative type of insurance with drought-tolerant maize to expand drought protection for small-scale farming families.

 

Evidence Insight: Innovations for Drought Resilience Two Ways in Mozambique and Tanzania

Pairing drought-tolerant maize (DTM) and index insurance generated resilience in two ways. DTM effectively maintained yields during mid-season droughts. After severe droughts, DTM bundled with insurance helped farmers recover from their losses and return production to even higher levels than in the year before the drought.

 

Evidence Insight: Making Fertilizer Subsides a Profitable Investment in Kenya

A temporary “learning” subsidy for commercially sourced fertilizers could help to expand the reach of Kenya's subsidy programs while supporting the commercial markets that will sustain long-term adoption.

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