Does nutrition information on food products lead to healthier food choices?

This paper examines the link between nutrition label use and consumers’ healthier food choices. Label use is considered for the two main types of labels currently found on food products; nutrition facts panels and nutrition/health claims. This link is tested using a three-equation multivariate probit model. Data were obtained from an ad hoc survey conducted in two medium-sized Spanish cities. The results indicate that the use of nutrition information by consumers, whether this involves the fact panel or the claim labels, does influence consumer choice of healthier food products to the same extent, although different types of consumers use the various types of labels considered.     

Where are the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system (including the food chain)? A comment

In a recent paper Garnett (2011) examines the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the global food system. This paper builds on Garnett’s contribution by considering how high levels of food waste contribute to the food chain’s greenhouse emissions and how they can be reduced, something Garnett generally overlooks. The emissions that arise from food waste represent the emissions embedded in the production of food that is then wasted and the emissions that arise from the process of waste disposal. Food waste can also be split into pre-consumer and consumer waste. These distinctions give rise to four categories of food waste related emissions: pre-consumer embedded, pre-consumer waste disposal, consumer embedded and consumer waste disposal emissions. The levels of food waste in each category differ between economies, as do the causes of wastage. Policies to address food waste and the associated emissions need to promote a mixture of technological and behavioural change and be tailored to the economic, cultural and technological conditions in each country.     

International trade related food miles – The case of Canada

At the beginning of the 21st century imports of agricultural and food commodities have become a major part of many nations’ food baskets. Indeed the global food system has several merits for nations, businesses and individual consumers’ well-being. However, as increasing evidence suggests that we are approaching an era of climate change and scarcity of cheap energy sources the sustainability of that system must be examined. One part of any food commodity chain is its ‘food miles’ – the distance the commodity travels from point of production to point of consumption, the required energy and resulting emissions. This paper presents a 1 year ‘snapshot’ of Canada’s total import related food miles. It presents an analysis of the distance imported foods traveled from around the world to major points of consumption in Canada and documents the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions related to those imports. It presents both a macro scale picture of the equivalent emissions related to transportation of imported food and a micro scale picture which focuses on specific commodities consumed in various parts of the country. It then discusses policy implications for food sustainability. Overall the research highlights that about 30% of the agricultural and food commodities consumed in Canada are imported, resulting in ‘food miles’ of over 61 billion tonnes km, leading to annual emissions of 3.3 million metric tonnes of CO₂. Of the various agriculture and food commodities studied, fruits and vegetables had the highest food miles related emissions.     

Improving developing country food security through aquaculture development—lessons from Asia

This paper provides a framework for examining aquaculture’s linkages to food and nutritional security by elucidating key hypotheses concerning the role of aquaculture in household food and income systems in developing countries. Taking examples from developing Asia, where aquaculture showed a steady growth over the last decade, the implications of aquaculture development are examined from the standpoint of its impact on employment, income and consumption. Analysis revealed clear evidence of positive income and consumption effects of aquaculture on households. However, employment effects are still not significant. The context of targeting small-scale and subsistence-oriented farmers as a means of improving food security in the developing countries has also been analyzed by identifying key socio-economic and policy factors affecting aquaculture adoption and its impact on the poor. The paper concludes that national policies for aquaculture development will need to concurrently address the food security and poverty questions more sharply than has been done at present, by providing institutional and infrastructure support for access to resources such as land and water and to markets by poor households. Finally, more empirical evidence should be collected on the varied opportunities aquaculture would provide to improve the income, employment and food consumption levels within households.     

Export behavior of Italian food firms: Does product quality matter?

Using firm-level data we investigate the export behavior of Italian food firms, focusing on the link between total factor productivity (TFP), product quality, and export across heterogeneous destinations. We test the main predictions of an international trade model based on firm heterogeneity in product quality and non-homothetic preferences in consumption. In this setting, the firm’s export intensity should be increasing in the per-capita income of foreign destinations, and the effect should be largely driven by firms’ heterogeneity in product quality. Using different measures of revenue-TFP, and different proxies for product quality, we find strong support for the main model predictions. Moreover, consistent with the Alchian–Allen effect, we find a positive relationship between the quality of exported products and the distance of destination countries.     

Footprints of water and energy inputs in food production – Global perspectives

During the second half of the 20th century the global food production more than doubled and thus responded to the doubling of world population. But the gains in food production came at a cost, leaving a significant environmental footprint on the ecosystem. Global cropland, plantations and pastures expanded, with large increases in fossil energy, water, and fertilizer inputs, imprinting considerable footprint on the environment. Information from pre eminent publications such as Nature, Science, PNAS and scholarly journals is synthesized to assess the water and energy footprints of global food production. The data show that the footprints are significant, both locally, national and globally and have consequences for global food security and ecosystem health and productivity. The literature nearly agrees that global food production system generates considerable environmental footprints and the situation would likely get worrisome, as global population grows by 50% by 2050. Investments are needed today to buffer the negative impacts of food production on the environment. Investments to boost water productivity and improve energy use efficiency in crop production are two pathways to reduce the environmental footprint.     

Fit for purpose? Rethinking food security responses in protracted humanitarian crises

The recent rise in the price of food worldwide defied easy categorization. However, the impact of the price hikes on developing country consumption served to refocus attention on food security. Much attention was paid to short-term buffering of nutrition in tandem with new investments in agriculture – a dual approach that served to reinforce a longstanding bifurcation in analysis and programming between “emergency” and “development” categories, suggesting that “emergency” responses deal with immediate needs while “development” means addressing underlying causes with a longer-term lens. The notion of the “relief to development continuum” has long been dismissed as conceptual framework, but has never really been replaced as a programmatic framework. This paper suggests a multi-dimensional way of conceiving of these categories and a more systematic way of thinking about response. Ethiopia is noted as an example where elements of this new approach are taking shape but even Ethiopia has not adopted all of these components in an integrated way, and the programming there has not been comprehensively evaluated.     

Mergers and acquisitions in the global food processing industry in 1986–2006

Food systems around the world experienced increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the past decades. Based on a sample of 13,911M&A attempts worldwide during 1986–2006, this study provides an analysis of major determinants of M&A completion in the food processing industry. Friendly attitude, cash payment and experience with M&As emerge as strong deal facilitators. Bidding competition, pursuit of parallel transactions, target subsidiary status and acquirer public status are the most important deal breakers. Unlike the lenient antitrust approach of the Reagan administration, the 1998 UK Competition Act and various directives and regulations on food safety and quality associated with the completion of the internal European market in 1992 facilitated M&A completion. In contrast, the beginning of the Economic and Monetary Union, as marked by the introduction of the Euro in 1999, had a strong negative effect on completion likelihood. This study identifies substantial regional differences. Completion of M&As that involve Asian firms depends on distinct factors. Results for NAFTA are mostly in line with predictions derived from general economic theory, compared to other regions.     

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.     

Attaining food security in Central Asia—emerging issues and challenges for policy research

Developing long-term strategies for improving food security, alleviating poverty and encouraging sound use of natural resources is fundamental for sustained economic growth in Central Asia. However, the process of policy and institutional reforms has been complex and slow. This paper, based on several rounds of client consultation, attempts to synthesize emerging issues and challenges that confront food and agricultural sectors in Central Asia. It argues that developing institutions that will foster a policy dialogue on long-term issues related to food, agriculture and the environment within and among the Central Asian countries is fundamental to identify development strategies for the next 10 to 15 years. This will require setting priorities for future food, agriculture, and natural resource policy research and analysis that will help in generating and sharing information on the policy challenges and solutions useful for Central Asia in its quest to reduce malnutrition, eradicate poverty and protect the natural resource base.     

For whom? – The governance of organic food and farming in the UK

The challenge of organic agriculture – that it might provide new forms of participation around food – has been hard to encapsulate in the conventional circuits of democracy. One answer to this ‘offer’ has been for consumers to purchase organic items as a way of demonstrating support for the organic sector. This paper argues that although this strategy may have been successful in the past, there is increasing evidence that there is a convergence between sections of the organic movement and the dominant multiple retailers. Through a wide range of evidence, including an analysis of how organic products are promoted and of how organic farm businesses are configured, this paper suggests that the potential of the organic movement is increasingly being circumscribed.     

Can targeted food taxes and subsidies improve the diet? Distributional effects among income groups

This paper analyses distributional effects of revenue-neutral tax reforms aimed at improving dietary quality and encouraging healthier grain consumption. Using data on household grain purchases, we analyse both the impact on dietary quality and the tax incidence among income groups of VAT reforms and excise duty reforms. The VAT reforms include subsidies of healthy products (products labelled with the Swedish National Food Administration’s healthy symbol) funded by increased VAT on ‘less healthy’ products. The excise duty reforms contain a subsidy of fibre content, funded by excise duties on either added sugar or saturated fat. Our results suggest that the VAT reforms have a similar impact on dietary quality across all income groups, with increases in fibre intake, but also unwanted increases in the intake of nutrients frequently overconsumed: fat, salt and sugar. The impact on dietary quality of the VAT reforms is therefore difficult to evaluate. With the exception of the lowest income group, the excise duty reforms seem to have a positive health effect across all other income groups, with increases in the intake of fibre and reductions in the intake of saturated fat, sugar and added sugar. For the lowest income group we find the highest increase in the intake of fibre, but generally an increase in the intake of the other nutrients, too. The excise duty reforms also result in a more energy-dense grain diet, with increases in the intake of calories for all income groups. Both the VAT reforms and the excise duty reforms appear to be progressive. The lowest income group pays less food taxes and generally faces a lower overall post-reform price level. The income group that increases its tax payments most is the one with the highest income. This is also the income group that faces the largest increase in the overall post-reform price level.     

Using best–worst scaling to explore perceptions of relative responsibility for ensuring food safety

We examine stakeholders’ perceptions of the share of the overall responsibility of each stage in the food supply chain has in ensuring that the meat people cook and eat at home is safe to consume. We elicit these perceptions of relative responsibility via surveys using the best–worst scaling technique and analyse the data via Bayesian estimation of mixed logit models. Results are reported for two groups of stakeholders: consumers and farmers, and for two meat food chains: chicken and beef. The results reveal that consumers tend to think farmers are more responsible for ensuring meat safety than farmers do. Similarly, farmers tend to think consumers have a greater degree of responsibility than consumers believe they have themselves. Such beliefs might affect stakeholders’ willingness to take actions and reduce hazards in the supply chain. From a policy perspective, the research findings provide useful insights to support policymakers and other decision-makers in the industry in developing mitigation strategies. Communication with consumers and farmers about emerging food safety problems in a supply chain and their involvement in proactive practices would need to be attuned to their subjective perceptions of relative responsibilities in order for integrated risk management systems to be effective.     

Household income,women’s income share and food calorie intake in South Western Nigeria

Current debates on the nature of intra-household preferences and resource control raises the question of how intra-household redistribution of income from men and women compares with increasing total household income as strategies for increasing calorie intake among low income households. I estimate calorie-income and calorie-women’s income share elasticities for a random sample of low income households from the rural areas of south western Nigeria. I find that calorie-income elasticity is positive and small, 0.194, but four times as large as calorie-women’s income share elasticity, suggesting that calorie intake is affected more by total disposable income than by its distribution pattern. Second, I find a small and negative effect of women’s income share on per caput calorie intake, −0.04, which is a rejection of the hypothesis that increases in women’s share of income will increase calorie intake and suggests that intra-household income re-distribution from men to women may not be an effective policy for increasing food calorie intake among households in the study area.     

Power resources for disempowered workers? Re-conceptualizing the power and potential of consumers in app-based food delivery

Consumers play an integral role in the labor process of app-based food delivery services through their consumption behaviors and performance ratings of workers. Some therefore see them as a potential ally of workers, whereas others view them as beholden by capital. This quantitative study uses power resource theory and a Rasch model to appraise consumers' understandings and attitudes toward working conditions in this segment of the “gig” economy. Drawing on two surveys of 1820 Australian consumers, we find that consumers are a potential yet heterogenous coalitional power resource who may align with workers on certain entitlements like minimum wages.     

Risk assessment in the international food safety policy arena. Can the multilateral institutions encourage unbiased outcomes?

Two institutions provide multilateral venues for countries to discuss food safety measures at the international level: the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) and the World Trade Organization. Both institutions encourage their Members to base food safety standards on scientific evidence.     

Measuring food insecurity: Can an indicator based on localized coping behaviors be used to compare across contexts?

The Coping Strategies Index (CSI) was developed as a context-specific indicator of food insecurity that counts up and weights coping behaviors at the household level. It has proven useful to operational humanitarian agencies and researchers in measuring localized food insecurity, but to date has not been useful to compare the relative severity of different crises and has therefore has not been particularly useful for geographic targeting or resource allocation. This paper analyzes data from 14 surveys in crisis-affected or chronically vulnerable countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that incorporated the context-specific CSI. The paper identifies a sub-set of individual coping behaviors common to all surveys, whose severity is regarded as broadly similar by households across these studies. Data from these studies were re-analyzed using a reduced index constructed from only these behaviors. Correlations of this new index with other known food security indicators are similar to those of the complete, context-specific CSI. This suggests the possibility that an indicator based on these common behaviors could be used to compare the types of food security crises analyzed here across different contexts – particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa – to improve geographic targeting and resource allocation, according to the severity of crises. This new, more comparative indicator can be generated with no loss to the context-specific nature of the original CSI, which has proven useful for assessment and monitoring purposes.     

Why is the food traceability system unsuccessful in Taiwan? Empirical evidence from a national survey of fruit and vegetable farmers

Food traceability systems allow the consumers or administrative authorities to trace the origins or ingredients of food products. Given the expressed concerns for food safety, the promotion of food traceability systems has occurred in many countries. Although a considerable body of literature has examined the consumer responses in regard to food traceability, relatively little is known about the producers’ adoption behaviors. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper investigates Taiwanese farmers’ participation decision in relation to the Taiwan Agriculture and Food Traceability (TAFT) program; special attention is paid to understanding the roles of the farmers’ program awareness and pesticide residue testing adoption in regard to TAFT participation. Using a national representative sample of the fruit and vegetable farmers in Taiwan, the results indicate that program awareness and pesticide residue testing adoption are the significant determinants of TAFT participation. An awareness of the government’s promotion of the TAFT program and adoption of pesticide residue testing has significantly reduced TAFT non-participation by 28.2% and 21.9% points, respectively.     

Household food security in semi-arid Africa—the contribution of participatory adaptive research and development to rural livelihoods in Eastern Kenya

The already precarious household food-security situation in many semi-arid areas of Africa may be rendered more so through the implementation of structural adjustment programmes that frequently prescribe austerity measures, along with a safety net to protect the vulnerable. However, longer-term development policy perspectives on the one hand, and shorter-term food-relief considerations on the other, often conflict. This paper illuminates the policy conflicts which arise when local-level research and development initiatives interface with the effects of macro-policy-initiated changes and safety-net interventions. Using a participatory agricultural research project in Eastern Kenya as a case study, the paper describes specific household food-security problem diagnosis and a range of research interventions planned within a more sustainable rural livelihoods framework. Working with local farmers, the project implemented a range of applied research and linked development interventions that showed promise in easing food security through a broadening of the livelihood base. Some of these initiatives were carried further through the local farmers' own initiative. The conclusion is that semi-arid areas, despite views that see these as low-potential and obvious safety-net candidates, often have potential for agricultural intensification and increased productivity. However, to ensure that research results are utilised and farmers have access to new technology and markets, there is a need for external or public-sector support to integrated longer-term development initiatives. This may require rethinking the scope of research and development approaches, particularly removing unhelpful boundaries between research, extension and development functions, and increasing farmer participation in the whole process—if possible as part of a less centralised and more household-oriented approach to food-security policy and strategy.