Impact of off-farm income on food security and nutrition in Nigeria

While the poverty implications of off-farm income have been analyzed in different developing countries, much less is known about the impact of off-farm income on household food security and nutrition. Here, this research gap is addressed by using farm survey data from Nigeria. Econometric analyses are employed to examine the mechanisms through which off-farm income affects household calorie and micronutrient supply, dietary quality, and child anthropometry. We find that off-farm income has a positive net effect on food security and nutrition. The prevalence of child stunting, underweight, and wasting is lower in households with off-farm income than in households without. Using a structural model, we also show that off-farm income contributes to higher food production and farm income by easing capital constraints, thus improving household welfare in multiple ways.     

Biofortification,biodiversity and diet: A search for complementary applications against poverty and malnutrition

Biofortification, the focus of the HarvestPlus program of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), represents a potentially powerful tool to increase dietary intake of essential nutrients in staple foods. This paper evaluates the compatibility of biofortification with the preferred option of dietary diversification and its potential impacts on the agricultural biodiversity essential for long term sustainability. In poor countries, biofortification requires increasing public investment in agricultural research and infrastructure for success. Rather than cereal commodities, biofortification for developing countries should focus on vegetatively propagated species or in improving quality of coarse cereals, as well as fodders. Community participatory approaches that identify local food resources with nutritional, agronomic and economic advantages to small-scale farmers could complement and set targets for biofortification as one of many approaches to alleviate nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore using agricultural biodiversity to reinforce dietary diversity can help situate biofortification within the larger context of sustainable food-based approaches. In this light, this paper evaluates specific biofortification interventions from environmental, sociocultural, political, economic, ethical, and biomedical perspectives.     

Does inflation kill? Exposure to food inflation and child mortality

Unlike extreme malnutrition shocks, such as famine and drought which grab the attention of the media, international aid organizations and policymakers, malnutrition due to food price hikes are often neglected and their impacts on children are not well known. It is well established that malnutrition during the critical periods of early life – between conception and the first 1000 days after birth – has lasting consequences on health and mortality. In this paper, using a uniquely constructed data from Ethiopia that takes advantage of high-frequency local retail food prices, we examine the impact of early life exposure to food price inflation on child mortality. Following survival events since conception, we estimate the causal impact of exposure to inflation during in-utero and infancy. The results show that exposure to a 10 percent inflation in staple food prices during in-utero decreases the survival of children under the age of five by about 5.4 percent. We also find that the impacts are non-linear depending on the specific month of exposure and substantially vary by observable characteristics and the type of staple food.