Global Futures & Strategic Foresight (GFSF) program enhances and uses a coordinated suite of biophysical and socioeconomic models to assess potential returns to investments in new agricultural technologies and policies. These models include IFPRI’s International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT), hydrology and water supply-demand models, and the DSSAT suite of process-based crop models. The program also provides tools and trainings to scientists and policy makers to undertake similar assessments. GFSF program is a Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) program led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

1. International Model for Policy Analysis
of Agricultural Commodities and Trade
(IMPACT Model)
IMPACT Development Team

2. IMPACT Beginnings
• Early 1990s – IMPACT development begins
– Lack of consensus about policies needed to feed the
world requires new analytical tools
• 1993 – 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the
Environment Initiative.
• 1995 - First published results using IMPACT
– Global Food Projections to 2020: Implications for
Investment (Rosegrant, Agcaoili-Sombilla and Perez,
1995)
– Considers the effects of population, investment, and
trade on food security and nutrition in developing
countries
2

3. IMPACT Timeline
• 1998-2002 – The Food Model integrates a water simulation model
(IWSM)
– Water availability becomes a driving variable on agriculture
productivity
– Food model has to disaggregate regionally to integrate the IWSM
correctly moving from 36 countries to 281 Food Production Units
• 2000-2005 – Expansion to 40 commodities
• 2005-2010 – Continued commodity refinement
– Oilseed and Sugar modules Added
– Fish Dropped
• 2010-2013 – Update to new version of the model (IMPACT 3)
– Base data updated to 2005
– Expansion to 56 commodities
– Geographical disaggregation to 159 regions, 154 basins, and 320 FPUs
3

4. IMPACT Model - Basic Idea
• The IMPACT model is designed to examine alternative futures
for global food supply, demand, trade, prices, and food
security.
• The IMPACT model allows IFPRI to provide both fundamental,
global baseline projections of agricultural commodity
production and trade and malnutrition outcomes along with
cutting-edge research results on quickly evolving topics such
as bioenergy, climate change, changing diet/food preferences,
and many other themes.
4

5. IMPACT Model - Schematic
5

6. IMPACT Model - Briefly
• Disaggregated agricultural commodities (56 commodities)
• Disaggregated spatial allocation of crop production at sub-national
level (159 countries, and 320 food production units)
• Details on physical use of land and water, trade policies, with
resulting trade
• World food prices are determined annually at levels that clear
international commodity markets
• Iterative year-by-year demand and supply equilibration
• Output indicators – calorie availability, malnutrition measures, share
at risk of hunger, water consumption, yield growth and total
production, area
6

7. IMPACT Model - Briefly
• Food production is driven by both economic and environmental
factors and has both extensive and intensive components (area x
yield)
• On the production side the model also accounts for the presence of
irrigation and for exogenous technological change
• Food demand is a function of commodity prices, income, and
population
• Feed demand is a function of livestock production, feed prices, and
feeding efficiency
• Other demand changes proportionally to food and feed demand
• Biofuel demand an exogenous calculation of demand for feedstock
from different commodities (sugar, oils, maize, other) to meet a share
of mandates in major countries
7

8. IMPACT Spatial Resolution
8
159
• Countries
154
• Water Basins
320
• Food
Production
Units