Special focus: The Bangladesh sorghum experiment

In 1978, an experiment was undertaken in Bangladesh to test the possibility of targeting part of the country's public food system toward the poorer and more malnourished population groups through the introduction of a lower-status, but nutritionally valuable food. Sorghum, as a representative inexpensive coarse grain, was selected and introduced into a set of ration shops in both urban and rural areas. Given the low, or negative, income elasticity of demand for sorghum among the middle class, offtakes in the urban test were low. However, in the rural areas, offtakes were substantial, particularly among the lower-income groups, reaching almost 70% in one of the two districts studied. Although this would suggest that the programme has considerable potential in affecting malnutrition and, to a lesser extent, the distribution of income, other information collected on the rural ration system as a whole indicates that, unless the larger system is reoriented, this potential has little chance of being realized.     

Spatial patterns of rural poverty and their relationship with welfare-influencing factors in Bangladesh

This study determines the spatial variation of rural poverty in Bangladesh and its relation to people’s livelihood assets affecting their ability to procure food. We estimated household income for over 1 million census households using a predictor model based on a nationally representative sample survey data set. We computed and mapped poverty indices for 415 rural subdistricts revealing distinct areas with high poverty incidence that correspond with ecologically depressed areas. However, other livelihood-influencing factors such as education, accessibility and services are significantly correlated with poverty. This indicates the need for continued focus on providing education and access to income-generating opportunities so that the poor can better meet their food needs. Geographically weighted regression analysis indicated spatial differences in the relative importance of various poverty-influencing factors. Multivariate clustering of the local parameter (β) estimates of the determinant factors revealed distinct spatial relationships, which have implications on poverty alleviation interventions specific to the different regions.     

Is the locus of poverty changing?

Urbanization is now a dominant demographic phenomenon in low- and middle-income countries. By the year 2000, half of the world's population will live in urban areas; of this half, two thirds will be in developing countries, predominantly in Asia. Whether there will be a corresponding shift of poverty from rural to urban areas is the central question of this analysis. Evidence from cross-sectional, time-series, and case data indicates that the percent of poverty in urban areas is dependent on income levels, income growth, and income distribution. The evidence also indicates that the number of poor in rural areas will exceed those in urban areas well into the 21st century. These poverty and urbanization trends are significant politically, and important also with respect to food policy and required investments in agriculture.     

The new political economy of food and agricultural development

This paper emphasizes the benefits of an agricultural strategy of development in developing countries. It begins by analyzing the close links between food and employment in the development process. In an underdeveloped country, food production is minimal, but demand is as well because of the small population growth. After development begins, income rises and food demand outstrips production. Only at later stages of development can food production meet demand. The middle stage of development describes most developing countries, which have averaged annual growth rates of 3% per capita in 1966-80. The growth in food demand must be met through technological advance in agriculture: high-yield seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation, which, for example, helped India increase cereal yields 29% between 1954-55 and 1964-65. The rate of growth in cropped areas has declined between 1961-1980, making increased yields more necessary. Growth in employment and income leads to higher food demand, which leads to higher prices and labor costs and a tendency towards capital-intensive agriculture. As the rural sector becomes wealthier, there is also more opportunity for non-agricultural rural workers, creating still more demand. In the final development stage, agricultural products can generate foreign exchange. In Asia, the priority is to ensure efficient outcomes of capital allocations, while in Africa, technology must be instituted. Public investment has been shown to be essential to rapid development in Japan, Taiwan, and the Punjab of India. The absence of this investment in Africa, partly because of an overemphasis on urban sector investment, is largely responsible for the backward state of African agriculture. Often rural areas are overtaxed, agricultural experts are lacking, and there is a growing presence of urban bureaucrats. Both experts in the donor community and farmers themselves must become more vocal in demanding investment in the agricultural sector.     

The power of the vegetable patch: How home-grown food helps large rural households achieve economies of scale & escape poverty

This paper explores how the household’s capacity to grow food impacts their ability to achieve economies of scale in food consumption and how this impacts the geographic distribution of poverty across rural and urban areas. An accurate understanding of consumption economies of scale is vital for comparing poverty levels across households of varying size. Using Sri Lankan data on home-grown food consumption, we empirically confirm that such economies of scale exist and that large households tend to consume relatively more home-grown food than smaller households. The magnitude of these scale economies are found to be larger than those in market purchased food, but smaller than those found in housing expenditure. Consuming more home-grown food is also found to be positively correlated with per-capita calories consumed. Taking these effects into account in poverty estimates leads to a 15 per cent decline in the number of household who fall below the poverty line in rural regions.     

Towards regional food security in southern Africa: a (new) policy framework for the agricultural sector

In the southern African Region (SAR) large populations, mainly concentrated in rural areas, face food insecurity and poverty. Food insecurity is intensified by adverse weather conditions and droughts which impact negatively on farm level food production throughout the region. Agriculture constitutes an important economic sector in the majority of countries in the region. This is measured as share of agricultural value added to the GDP and as agriculture's share in employment. Based on these facts alone, it must be obvious that sustained agricultural performance will play a significant role in the improvement of food security and livelihoods in the region. However, food security is not only attained in rural areas and by the consumption of home produced food stuffs. Urbanisation is expected to increase dramatically over the next few decades and feeding the urban masses, at affordable prices, must be considered to be a high future priority for governments in the region. Food security must not be viewed as an agricultural issue per se. The drive to food self sufficiency through domestic agriculture production in many countries in the region did not enable these countries to feed their own population. Food security should rather be defined as the acquirement of sufficient and nutritious quantities of food (Sen, 1981, Poverty and Famines: An essay on Entitlement and Deprivation). An approach, whereby attention is given to the macro level availability of food, access to income streams as well as improved production capacity to acquire food at a household level and the utilisation of nutritious food, should therefore be guiding food security policies (SADC: FSTAU, 1997, A Strategic Framework for Food Security in the Region). This broader view emphasises household level poverty reduction, economic development and growth as important components of a food security strategy (World Food Summit, Rome, 1996). An important issue which therefore needs to be explored is whether agriculture does have the potential to contribute to economic processes, which will support broad based development and food security. This paper is intended to argue the importance of agricultural development for food security in the region and to develop a diverse policy framework to strengthen this new, more comprehensive role of agriculture in the region.     

Stabilizing food markets in eastern and southern Africa

A major challenge for agricultural policy in Africa is how to address the market instability-related causes of low farm productivity and food insecurity. This paper highlights structural changes affecting the behavior of food markets in eastern and southern Africa and discusses their implications for the design of strategies to stabilize food prices. These changes include (1) an increasing trend in maize prices toward import parity levels, reflecting an emerging structural maize deficit in much of the region; (2) increasingly diversified food consumption patterns in both rural and urban areas; (3) highly concentrated marketed maize surplus, which have largely unrecognized implications for the magnitude of price risk faced by most farm households; and (4) the strategic interactions between private and public marketing actors leading in some cases to heightened market instability and food crises. In the prevailing dual market environment now characterizing most of the region, greater coordination, transparency, and consultation between private and public market actors is needed to achieve reasonable levels of food price stability and predictability.     

The broadband digital divide and the economic benefits of mobile broadband for rural areas

Broadband is becoming increasingly important to national economies and the personal lives of users. However, broadband availability and adoption are not diffusing in rural and urban areas at the same rates. This article updates the rural broadband digital divide, with special attention paid to mobility. Empirical estimations of broadband provision and usage in the US show that rural areas have fewer high-speed fixed and mobile providers but more slower-speed fixed providers than urban areas. While rural availability of mobile broadband is lower than in urban areas, it still helps fill in gaps in fixed broadband coverage in rural areas. The rural gap in fixed broadband usage remains, but the mobile broadband usage gap disappears after controlling for household demographics. The raw broadband usage gaps between rural and urban households are proportionally greater for low-income households. The potential for mobile broadband to benefit rural areas through economic development is also examined.     

Impact of commuting by workers on household dietary diversity in rural India

Drawing insights from the literature on transformation of rural non-farm employment, pathways from agriculture to nutrition, and linkages between migration and nutritional status of household, we seek to understand differences in dietary diversity across three mutually exclusive types of rural Indian households: where all members work in rural areas, at least one member commutes to urban areas, at least one member has no fixed place of work. Our analysis is based on a nationally representative data set from India for the year 2009–10 and we use propensity score matching methods. We find that as compared to households with no commuters, households with rural–urban commuters have higher dietary diversity; whereas households with no fixed place workers have lower dietary diversity. We also find differences in dietary diversity across households which differ by their primary source of income.     

Broadband and universal service

Section 254(b)(3) of the 1996 Telecommunications Act established the objective that residents of rural areas should have access to advanced telecommunications and information services comparable to services in urban areas. Pursuant to the passage of the Act, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established a new universal fund that provides explicit support to high-cost rural areas. This paper addresses the question of whether people in rural areas have similar access due to the support provided through the Commission's new high-cost fund. This paper focuses on the telephone platform because cable companies often do not serve rural areas due to the high cost of service, and because there is no mechanism for the federal or state government to subsidize the provision of advanced telecommunications services via cable. The Act's objectives are apparently not being met in rural areas served by large companies since people living in these areas are much less likely to have qualified lines that could be used to access advanced telecommunications services. On the other hand, small companies are much closer to satisfying the statutory requirement as a result of the implicit support received through cost sharing.     

经济增长、产业结构变迁与城乡居民收入差距——基于PVAR模型的动态分析

本文运用 PVAR模型研究了我国1998～2012年的经济增长、产业结构变迁与城乡居民收入差距之间的动态关系。研究结果显示：经济增长短期内对城乡收入差距的影响具有缩小作用,但是长期来看,经济增长与城乡收入差距的变动存在相互促进作用;产业结构的调整与城乡收入差距的关系并不一致。产业结构的合理化调整有助于缩小城乡收入差距,而城乡收入差距的变动也存在促使产业结构合理化调整的推动力,产业结构的高级化缺乏缩小城乡收入差距变动的效果,同样当前城乡收入差距的变动不利于产业结构的高级化发展。     

Food value chain transformations in developing countries: Selected hypotheses on nutritional implications

We examine how the transformation of food value chains (FVCs) influence the triple malnutrition burden (undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies and over-nutrition) in developing countries. We propose a FVC typology (modern, traditional, modern-to-traditional, and traditional-to-modern) that takes into account the participants, the target market, and the products offered. Next, we propose selected hypotheses on the relationship between each FVC category and elements of the triple malnutrition burden. The primary finding is that the transformation of FVCs creates challenges and opportunities for nutrition in developing countries. For example, Modern FVCs may increase over-nutrition problems and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies for urban people with relatively high incomes. However, they have little nutritional impacts among rural residents and urban poor people, who primarily depend on traditional FVCs to access adequate quantities of calories and micronutrients. In addition, modern food manufacturers are leveraging traditional distribution networks (modern-to-traditional FVCs), substantially increasing access to low-priced processed/packaged foods in rural areas and low-income urban neighbors with mixed impacts on the triple burden of malnutrition. Further research should focus on the influence of FVC transformation on reduction of micronutrient deficiencies, on modeling demand substitution effects across food categories and the attendant policy implications for malnutrition.     

The food security challenge for southern Africa

This paper considers food security aims and instruments against a background of changed circumstances internationally and regionally. The international changes discussed are: a sharper focus on achieving macro-economic stabilization, which inter alia has led to closer scrutiny of what the public sector should be financing, and a decline in funding for agriculture; a reduced role for governments in commercial-type activities; the shift towards greater integration of world markets; and changing prospects for international aid flows. Regionally, southern Africa is moving away from a past of conflict and inward-looking economies, towards greater cooperation and trade, and less interventionist economic management.The commendable SADC food security strategy paper of June 1997 is considered, and its implications drawn out. The main messages are that (a) household food insecurity results from poverty, (b) national food insecurity results from faltering development and weak external trade performance, and (c) future strategies must therefore lie with greater efficiency in the use of resources and with patterns of development which are most effective in creating employment and incomes. Arguably there is therefore no case for a food security agenda that is separate from broad-based development aimed at poverty alleviation. This understanding of food security is at variance with some of the policies and development programmes in the region. Promotion of self-sufficiency in grains, specific food-security instruments, and controls over and interventions in markets may all be counter to improving food security for the region if they hinder policy and institutional reforms called for by the wider development agenda.The main roles for governments in promoting food security are discussed in terms of creating an enabling environment for development, correcting for market failures, and targeted measures to achieve social objectives. Food security needs both an urban and a rural focus, and involves all economic sectors. For rural areas, governments' roles may usefully be defined in terms of supporting household strategies aimed at raising and stabilizing incomes through livelihood diversification, intensification of farming, and migration.Two priority policy areas which are central to achieving food security objectives are discussed at some length: trade policy and the promotion of smallholder farming. The roles of government in these areas are discussed in the light of economic theory and past experiences in the region. A vision for a future trade regime is outlined, and strategic interventions by governments are identified. The challenge for governments in supporting smallholder farming is, first, to define with greater rigour than in the past the priority uses for public funds, and, second, to find much more efficient ways of delivering services than in the past. It will otherwise be difficult to make a case for reversing the decline in public funding for the sector.The paper ends with brief discussions of the roles for aid and for SADC in promoting food security, and with a question of whether a new initiative is needed to strengthen trade policy skills in the region.     

Spatial clustering of rural poverty and food insecurity in Sri Lanka

We mapped poverty, with reference to a nutrition-based poverty line, to analyse its spatial clustering in Sri Lanka. We used the Divisional Secretariat poverty map, derived by combining the principal component analysis and the synthetic small area estimation technique, as the data source. Two statistically significant clusters appear. One cluster indicates that low poverty rural areas cluster around a few low poverty urban areas, where low agricultural employment and better access to roads are key characteristics. The other indicates a cluster of high poverty rural areas, where agriculture is the dominant economic activity, and where spatial clustering is associated with factors influencing agricultural production. Agricultural smallholdings are positively associated with spatial clustering of poor rural areas. In areas where water availability is low, better access to irrigation significantly reduces poverty. Finally, we discuss the use of poverty mapping for effective policy formulation and interventions for alleviating poverty and food insecurity.     

Willingness to pay and pricing for broadband across the rural/urban divide in Canada

Efforts to close the rural/urban digital divide in Canada have reached new heights in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and “stay-at-home” policies. Yet the extent to which the rural/urban digital divide extends to pricing and demand for broadband services is not well understood. Using a dataset of more than 4700 residential survey responses from southern Ontario, Canada, we assess the disparity in pricing and willingness to pay for broadband across rural and urban households. Our results suggest that rural users face higher installation and monthly fees while receiving a significantly inferior quality of service than their urban counterparts. Demand among rural users for improved broadband access is also higher than for urban users. These results may strengthen the business case for expanding broadband services into rural areas and/or supporting justification for public subsidization. Our analysis also suggests higher economic net benefits from prioritizing majority access at current federal service objectives rather than investing in a small number of users to receive higher quality broadband.     

我国城乡发展一体化与财政政策思路

城乡发展一体化是中央提出的一项重大战略决策,是解决“三农”问题、破解二元结构．推进我国经济社会长期可持续发展的重要措施。公共财政是政府履行职能和宏观调控的基本手段．在推进城乡发展一体化中担负着重要使命和职责。文章从宏观和战略的高度,深入论述了城乡发展一体化的重大战略意义．系统归纳了新世纪以来国家财政支持城乡一体化的主要政策及其成效．客观揭示了当前中国城乡一体化面临的若干主要矛盾。在此基础上,进一步提出近中期运用财政政策促进城乡一体化的基本思路。主要政策建议：一是政府基础设施投资要向农村倾斜;二是着力完善农业支持政策;三是建立与完善农村剩余劳动力有效流动和转移的新型制度政策框架;四是创新城乡基本公共服务均等化的政策体系。     

Food deserts and diet-related health outcomes of the elderly

It is hypothesized that residents of neighborhoods with limited access to affordable and nutritious food face greater barriers to eating a healthy diet, which may in turn, result in worse health outcomes for them. Low-income elderly in urban areas may be uniquely affected by these so-called “food deserts” due to limited transportation options, strong attachments to local neighborhoods, fixed incomes, physical limitations in food shopping and meal preparation, and chronic health problems. Using the 2006, 2010, and 2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the association between the food environment of elderly individuals living in urban Census tracts and their diet-related health was examined. Within urban areas, we find little evidence that food deserts negatively impact the health of lower income elderly individuals. Policies to address the needs of elderly residents of food deserts should be narrowly targeted and carefully justified.     

Food aid targeting in Ethiopia: A study of who needs it and who gets it

The need for systematic, empirical analysis of food aid targeting and impacts is overwhelming, especially given the large numbers of people concerned and volume of funds allocated to the problem of feeding Ethiopia's food insecure. This research examines the efficiency of food aid targeting in rural Ethiopia based on empirical evidence from a nationally representative survey of 4166 farm households.A key finding of the study is that there is no significant association between household food insecurity (vulnerability) and food aid receipts—a result of high errors of exclusion and inclusion at both the wereda and household levels. Four factors are identified as causes of the high level of targeting error: (1) the primary beneficiaries of food aid programs are found to be households at the extremes in terms of food availability: those with the least and those with the most food available; (2) a disproportionate number of female and aged heads of households received food aid, irrespective of their food needs; (3) an inability of the food aid system to reach households outside of the historically deficit areas; and (4) a disproportionate concentration of food aid in the region of Tigray.     

Price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets

Price dispersion, i.e. a homogeneous product being sold at different prices by different sellers, is among the most replicated findings in empirical economics. The paper assesses the extent and determinants of spatial price dispersion for 14 perfectly homogeneous food products in more than 400 retailers in a market characterized by the persistence of a large number of relatively small traditional food stores, alongside large supermarkets. The extent of observed price dispersion is quite high. When prices in an urban area (where the spatial concentration of sellers is higher) are compared with those in smaller towns and rural areas, differences in search costs and the potentially higher degree of competition do not yield lower prices. Other counteracting factors, including differences in seller costs and consumer incomes, make prices, on average, higher in the urban area for 11 of the 14 products considered. For many, but not all, the products supermarkets proved to be less expensive than traditional retailers, although average savings from food shopping at supermarkets were extremely low. Finally, the results of the study provide evidence that retailers have different pricing strategies and these differences also emerge for supermarkets belonging to the same chain. The results presented in the paper suggest that a variety of factors play a role in explaining price dispersion. In addition to differences in seller costs, the contemporaneous heterogeneity of retailers (in terms of services provided) and consumers (in terms of search costs and preferences) makes the emergence of monopolistic competition possible as well as allowing small traditional food retailers to remain in business.     

中国农村工业园区政策的演变和提示

工业化是传统经济转向现代经济的必由之路,是发展中国家孜孜以求的目标。农村工业化是促进农村经济增长的强大动力,同时在工业化过程中城市与农村是相互依赖的。农村工业化是工业化的重要内容。农村工业作为整个工业体系的重要组成部分,可以与城市工业相互补充、相互促进、共同推动工业化的发展。农村工业的发展,有利于为城市工业提供劳动力、场地、资金等条件,有利于城市工业的产品扩散和产业转移,有利于城市工业向高新技术产业领域发展,促进城乡产业结构的合理化。文章研究了中国农村工业化政策的意义,并对其在发展过程中起到重要影响的体制因素进行了分析。