Agricultural production and children’s diets: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

This paper studies the relationship between pre-school children’s food consumption and household agricultural production

Abstract

This working paper has been published by the Ethiopia Strategy Support Programme (ESSP) and funded by Transform Nutrition in which the relationship between pre-school children’s food consumption and household agricultural production is studied.

Using a large household survey from rural Ethiopia, the authors find that increasing household production diversity leads to considerable improvements in children’s diet diversity. However, they also document how this non-separability of consumption and production does not hold for households that have access to food markets. These findings imply that nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions that push for market-integration are likely to be more effective in reducing under-nutrition than those promoting production diversity.

This research is supported by the Department for International Development’s Transform Nutrition Programme which is led by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Citation

Hirvonen, K.; Hoddinott, J. Agricultural production and children’s diets: Evidence from rural Ethiopia. Ethiopia Strategy Support Programme (ESSP), (2014) 17 pp.

Agricultural production and children’s diets: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

Published 1 January 2014