Non-farm work and food security among farm households in Northern Ghana

This paper examines the impact of non-farm work on household income and food security among farm households in the Northern Region of Ghana. We analyze the impact by employing propensity score matching method that accounts for self-selection bias. The matching results show that participation in non-farm work exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on household income and food security status, supporting the widely held view that income from non-farm work is crucial to food security and poverty alleviation in rural areas of developing countries.     

The impact of a food security program on household food consumption in Northwestern Ethiopia: A matching estimator approach

With the financial support from various development partners, Ethiopia has designed and implemented several programs to improve household food security. Yet, food insecurity is still a major challenge to several millions of people in the country and it is questionable whether the different food security programs implemented over the past years have been successful. Using a propensity score matching method to control for pre-intervention differences, this study examined the impact on household food calorie intake of an integrated food security program (IFSP), which had been implemented in Northwestern Ethiopia by two non-governmental organizations as a case study. The estimated results provide evidence that IFSP has a positive and statistically significant effect on food calorie intake. In particular, IFSP has raised physical food calorie intake by 30% among the beneficiary households. However, we also found that IFSP has differential impact depending on family size, landownership and gender of head of household. Overall, the paper provides evidence that supporting integrated food security programs is important to improve food security in rural areas.     

Land rights,gender equality and household food security: Exploring the conceptual links in the case of India

This paper seeks to critically examine the conceptual linkages between the issue of land rights for women, with household food security on the one hand and gender equality on the other. After a brief analysis of shifts in both international and national policy discourse and practice in terms of control over land as vital for food security, it seeks to analyse the implications of this for gender relations. The paper argues that in a context of diversified rural livelihoods, the contribution of agricultural production to household subsistence has been declining. This trend has been reinforced by a decline in public investment, stagnant growth and fluctuating prices for agricultural products. Men have been able to access the better paid, non-farm jobs, while leaving women behind to manage agricultural production. The renewed link between production and food security in agricultural policy has however meant allowing men not to have responsibility for household food security. While a right to land for women is a positive development, it appears also to be leading to an enhancement of work burdens, without much change in terms of status or decision-making authority.     

The impact of maize price shocks on household food security: Panel evidence from Tanzania

Using three waves (2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13) of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey, this study investigates the impact of maize price shocks on household food security. Between 2008/09 and 2012/13, calorie intake stagnated for urban households, yet sharply deteriorated for rural households. The latter was driven by a significant decline in the consumption of the major staple maize which showed strongest price hikes among all major food items. Fixed-effects regressions indicate a clear negative relationship between maize prices and average household energy intake. Almost all population groups were found to be negatively affected by maize price shocks, with rural landless households being the most vulnerable group. In particular, a 50 percent rise in maize prices decreases caloric intake for rural (urban) households on average by 4.4 (5.4) percent, and for rural landless households by 12.6 percent. Results further indicate that subsistence agriculture can act as an effective strategy to insure against food price volatility.     

Compounding food and income insecurity in Yemen: Challenges from climate change

This paper provides a model-based assessment of local and global climate change impacts for the case of Yemen, focusing on agricultural production, household incomes and food security. Global climate change is mainly transmitted through rising world food prices. Our simulation results suggest that climate change induced price increases for food will raise agricultural GDP while decreasing real household incomes and food security. Rural non-farm households are hit hardest as they tend to be net food consumers with high food budget shares, but farm households also experience real income losses given that many of them are net buyers of food. The impacts of local climate change are less clear given the ambiguous predictions of global climate models (GCMs) with respect to future rainfall patterns in Yemen. Local climate change impacts manifest itself in long term yield changes, which differ between two alternative climate scenarios considered. Under the MIR scenario, agricultural GDP is somewhat higher than with perfect mitigation and rural incomes rise due to higher yields and lower prices for sorghum and millet. Under the CSI scenario, positive and negative yield changes cancel each other out. As a result, agricultural GDP and household incomes hardly change compared to perfect mitigation.     

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.     

Impact of modern agricultural technologies on smallholder welfare: Evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia

This paper evaluates the potential impact of adoption of improved legume technologies on rural household welfare measured by consumption expenditure in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. The study utilizes cross-sectional farm household level data collected in 2008 from a randomly selected sample of 1313 households (700 in Ethiopia and 613 in Tanzania). The causal impact of technology adoption is estimated by utilizing endogenous switching regression. This helps us estimate the true welfare effect of technology adoption by controlling for the role of selection problem on production and adoption decisions. Our analysis reveals that adoption of improved agricultural technologies has a significant positive impact consumption expenditure (in per adult equivalent terms) in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. This confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving rural household welfare as higher consumption expenditure from improved technologies translate into lower poverty, higher food security and greater ability to withstand risk. An analysis of the determinants of adoption highlighted inadequate local supply of seed, access to information and perception about the new cultivars as key constraints for technology adoption.     

Agricultural policy reforms and food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

This paper provides an overview of agricultural policy reforms and their impact on food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Owing to increasing hostility in regional trade among the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, like their neighbors, have chosen to follow a path of food self-sufficiency, which has biased their agricultural systems towards grain production. The paper finds that the land reforms in these two countries, which have dismantled the state farms, have resulted in reduced productivity of crops and declining food availability at the household level. It argues that reversing this trend will require increased investment in rural infrastructure and agricultural research to improve crop yields, and in the short-term, food security interventions to protect the poor and vulnerable.     

Alternatives to calorie-based indicators of food security: An application of machine learning methods

Identifying food insecure households in an accurate and cost-effective way is important for targeted food policy interventions. Since predictive accuracy depends partly on which indicators are used to identify food insecure households, it is important to assess the performance of indicators that are relatively easy and inexpensive to collect yet can proxy for the “gold standard” food security indicator, calorie intake. We study the effectiveness of different variable combinations and methods in predicting calorie-based food security among poor households and communities in rural Bangladesh. We use basic household information as a benchmark set for predicting calorie-based food security. We then assess the gain in predictive power obtained by adding subjective food security indicators (e.g., self-reported days without sufficient food), the dietary diversity score (DDS), and the combination of both sets to our model of calorie-based food security. We apply machine learning as well as traditional econometric methods in estimation. We find that the overall predictive accuracy rises from 63% to 69% when we add the subjective and DDS sets to the benchmark set. Our study demonstrates that while alternative indicators and methods are not always accurate in predicting calorie intake, DDS related indicators do improve accuracy compared to a simple benchmark set.     

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.     

Self-reported food insecurity in Africa during the food price crisis

This article analyzes data on self-reported food insecurity of more than 50,000 individuals in 18 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2005–2008, when global food prices increased dramatically. The average level of self-reported food insecurity was high but remarkably stable over time, at about 54%. However, this average hides large heterogeneity, both within countries and across countries. In eight of the sample countries, self-reported food security improved, while it worsened in the ten other countries. Our results suggest that heterogeneous effects in self-reported food security are consistent with economic predictions, as they are correlated with economic growth and net food consumption (both at the household and country level). Specifically, in the face of rising food prices, self-reported food security improved on average in rural households, while it worsened in urban households – a finding that holds when using global prices or domestic food prices. Improvements in food security over time were also positively correlated with net food exports and GDP per capita growth. While the self-reported indicator used in this paper requires further study and one should carefully interpret the results, our findings suggest the need for a critical evaluation of the currently used data and numbers in the public debate on food prices and food insecurity.     

What explains gender differences in food insecurity?

There is a rich literature devoted to the role women play in ensuring the food security of the household and other household members. However, relatively little attention has been paid to their own food security situation. The challenge with investigating the food security of women is that most surveys collect food security data at the household level making inferences about individual-level food security difficult. Using a large international sample of individual-level data and the first global experiential measure of food insecurity, I show that women have a higher probability of being food insecure relative to men. The magnitude of the gender gap in food insecurity varies across regions and varies by the severity level of food insecurity. In the developed countries of the European Union, women are 4.7 percentage points more likely than men to experience some form of food insecurity. In the poor countries of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, women are two percentage points more likely than men to be severely food insecure. Using a modification of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, I find that gender differences in household income, educational attainment, and social networks explain the majority of the gender gap in food insecurity. However, in some regions, namely South Asia and Australia/New Zealand, gender differences in observable characteristics fail to account for gender differences in food insecurity. This analysis suggests that policies that address gender inequality in employment opportunities and educational attainment may also impact food insecurity.     

Fish as the “bank in the water” – Evidence from chronic-poor communities in Congo

Small-scale fisheries in developing countries are often perceived as being a low-productivity and backward informal sector. As a result they are rarely considered in poverty reduction programmes and rural development planning. In this paper, we investigate the dual role of fish as a food and cash crop through data collected in river fisheries in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Fishing in this very remote rural region of DRC is operated both by men and women, as part of a household multiple activity livelihood strategy. The data shows that poor households rely heavily on fishing for their supply of protein-rich food, in particular through women’s subsistence catches. Fishing also appears to be the main source of cash-income for the majority of households, including local farmers. Based on these findings and a review of the literature, the paper argues that small-scale fisheries can play a fundamental role in local economies, especially in remote rural areas where they strengthen significantly the livelihoods of people through their role in both food security and cash-income generation.     

Who gets the goods? A general equilibrium perspective on food aid in Mozambique

We employ a computable general equilibrium approach to examine the effects of alternative food aid distribution schemes for drought-response food aid to Mozambique. Alternative schemes have very distinct impacts on household welfare and prices. Compared with monetization of food aid by government, direct distribution to households (by population shares) strongly benefits rural households. Even assuming that government cannot target food aid strictly at drought-stricken rural people, our results indicate that, when improving household welfare is the primary goal of the food aid, direct distribution of food aid to households is preferred.     

Population density,migration, and the returns to human capital and land: Insights from Indonesia

Rapid population growth in many developing countries has raised concerns regarding food security and household welfare. To understand the consequences of population growth in a general equilibrium setting, we examine the dynamics of population density and its impacts on household outcomes using panel data from Indonesia, combined with district-level demographic data. Historically, Indonesia has adapted to land constraints through a mix of agricultural intensification, expansion of the land frontier, and non-farm diversification, with public policies playing a role in catalyzing all of these responses. In contemporary Indonesia we find that human capital determines the effect of increased population density on per capita household consumption expenditure. The effect of population density is positive if the average educational attainment is high (above junior high school), while it is negative otherwise. On the other hand, farmers with larger holdings maintain their advantage in farming regardless of population density. The paper concludes with some potential lessons for African countries from Indonesia’s more successful rural development experiences.     

How do stakeholder interactions influence national food security policy in the Caribbean? The case of Saint Lucia

Increasingly, multi-stakeholder processes have been recognized as being necessary to the development of public policies seeking to promote systemic innovation in response to complex and multidimensional challenges, such as household food security, rural development, and environmental change. Saint Lucia, a small island developing state located in the Caribbean, has been grappling with a wide range of agriculture, food and nutrition security challenges with varying degrees of policy success. Recognizing the significance of the challenge, this paper explores the nature of the stakeholder interactions surrounding the development of Saint Lucia’s 2009–2015 National Agricultural Policy and considers some of the implications for food and agriculture-related policy outcomes. Results reveal a general lack of supportive conditions for effective multi-stakeholder processes, including low stakeholder participation levels, conflicting roles of different forms of social capital in the interactions between stakeholders, and missing “boundary” organizations capable of facilitating a transition towards more flexible and adaptive institutions, enhanced knowledge exchange and learning, and greater trust among stakeholders in the policy network. Future avenues for research and development are subsequently identified.     

Food insecurity,poverty and the Malawian Starter Pack: Fresh start or false start?

Chronic food insecurity and chronic poverty are closely related in Malawi. Since independence in 1964 national food security has been a key policy objective. However, until the 1990s less emphasis was placed on the household dimensions of food security and its links with chronic poverty. In the last decade a number of initiatives have been used in Malawi to tackle the issue of household food insecurity. One of the most controversial has been the Starter Pack programme launched in 1998. Initially consisting of a free handout of packs of improved maize seed, legumes and fertiliser to every small holder farm household in Malawi the scheme, under donor pressure, was subsequently scaled down to become a form of targeted social safety net programme. This paper analyses the strengths and weakness of both the original programme and its scaled down version and assesses the reason for the considerable opposition to the programme from Malawi’s donor community. Although Starter Pack is no longer operative in Malawi the Malawian experience is used to derive lessons for other countries where household food insecurity is an important dimension of chronic poverty.     

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.     

Food subsidies in Egypt: reform options,distribution and welfare

Egypt's food subsidies (in 1996/97 5.5 percent of government expenditures) cover rationed cooking oil and sugar (23 percent of subsidy cost) and unrationed bread and flour (77 percent). The subsidies enhance food security but are nontargeted and have substantial leakages. This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the short-run effects of alternative food-subsidy scenarios. Government savings from reduced spending finance uniform cuts in direct tax rates across all household types. The model uses a 1996/97 database with detailed household information. The targeting of cooking oil and sugar subsidies to “the needy” (the bottom two quintiles in rural and urban areas) has a progressive effect while elimination of this subsidy is regressive. Disaggregated household consumption changes are small (±0.3 percent). The targeting of all food subsidies is pro-needy, partly due to important indirect effects. The consumption of the needy increases by 0.5 percent with little change for the nonneedy. Food subsidy elimination is regressive: the needy suffer a consumption loss of 1.1 percent. If the government savings instead are transferred to the needy, the impact is reversed: consumption increases by 4.2 percent for needy households while the nonneedy register a small loss. The overall policy implication is that food subsidy reform can benefit the needy with at worst only a modest negative impact on the nonneedy. If the subsidy is entirely eliminated, targeted government programs would be necessary to protect the needy from the negative impact.     

Food counts. Measuring food consumption and expenditures in household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES). Introduction to the special issue

This introductory paper presents the results of an international multi-disciplinary research project on the measurement of food consumption in national household surveys. Food consumption data from household surveys are possibly the single most important source of information on poverty, food security, and nutrition outcomes at national, sub-national and household level, and contribute building blocks to global efforts to monitor progress towards the major international development goals.The paper synthesizes case studies from a diverse set of developing and OECD countries, looking at some of the main outstanding research issues as identified by a recent international assessment of 100 existing national household surveys (Smith et al., 2014). The project mobilized expertise from different disciplines (statistics, economics, food security, nutrition) to work towards enhancing our understanding of how to improve the quality and availability of food consumption and expenditure data, while making them more valuable for a diverse set of users. The individual studies summarized in this paper analyze, both theoretically and empirically, how different surveys design options affect the quality of the data being collected and, in turn, the implications for statistical inference and policy analysis.The conclusions and recommendations derived from this collection of studies will be instrumental in advancing the methodological agenda for the collection of household level food data, and will provide national statistical offices and survey practitioners worldwide with practical insights for survey design, while providing poverty, food and nutrition policymakers with greater understanding of these issues, as well as improved tools for and better guidance in policy formulation.