The latest turmoil of production and price volatility in the global food sector has put agriculture back to the top of the development agenda. Population growth, changing consumer preferences, bioenergy demand and climate change are some of the huge challenges for agricultural production today and in the future. In the last decades, productivity has been constantly improved through the introduction of improved crop varieties and the greater use of mechanization, irrigation, chemical fertilizer and pesticides.
Natural resource management practices, such as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), have been proposed to tackle agricultural challenges such as decreasing productivity growth and environmental degradation. Yet, the benefits of system technologies for farmers are often debated. Impacts seem to be context-specific, which is especially relevant in the small farm sector with its large degree of agroecological and socioeconomic heterogeneity. This was not always considered in previous research.
Iron deficiency is a widespread nutritional problem in developing countries, causing impaired physical activity and cognitive development, as well as maternal mortality. Although food fortification and supplementation programmes have been effective in some countries, their overall success remains limited. Biofortification, that is, breeding crops for higher micronutrient content, is a relatively new approach. We propose a methodology for ex-ante impact assessment of iron biofortification, which builds on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and a large household data set.
Micronutrient malnutrition is a public health problem in many regions of the developing world. Severe vitamin A and iron deficiencies are of particular concern due to their high prevalence and their serious, multiple health effects on humans. This paper examines dietary patterns and nutrient intakes, as well as their socioeconomic determinants among households in the Philippines.
This study analyse how agricultural extension can be made more effective in terms of increasing farmers’ adoption of pro-nutrition technologies, such as biofortified crops. In a randomised controlled trial with farmers in Kenya, the authors implemented several extension treatments and evaluated their effects on the adoption of beans biofortified with iron and zinc. Difference-in-difference estimates show that intensive agricultural training can increase technology adoption considerably.
Agricultural innovations are seen as a key avenue to improve nutrition and health in smallholder farm households. But details of these agriculture-nutrition-health linkages are not yet well understood. While there is a broad literature on the adoption of agricultural technologies, most studies primarily focus on impacts in terms of productivity and income. Nutrition and health impacts have rarely been analyzed. In this article, we argue that future impact studies should include nutrition and health dimensions more explicitly.
The globalisation of agrifood systems is a mega-trend with potentially profound nutritional implications. This paper describes various facets of this globalisation process and reviews studies on nutritional effects with a particular focus on developing countries. Results show that global trade and technological change in agriculture have substantially improved food security in recent decades, although intensified production systems have also contributed to environmental problems in some regions.
Fairtrade certification has recently gained in importance for various export crops produced in developing countries. One of Fairtrade's main objectives is to improve the social conditions of smallholder farmers. Previous research showed that Fairtrade has positive effects on farmers' sales prices and incomes in many situations. However, more detailed analysis of the effects on food security and other dimensions of household living standard is rare.
How we eat has a major impact on our individual health status, our quality of life and our well-being. Many of the foods we eat have a major social, environmental, climate and animal welfare footprint. This expertise defines policies to promote sustainability in food consumption as policies that integrate all four target dimensions: human health, social aspects, the natural environment (including climate) and animal welfare. Achieving greater sustainability in food consumption poses great challenges.
Many of the world’s food-insecure and undernourished people are smallholder farmers in developing countries. This is especially true in Africa. There is an urgent need to make smallholder agriculture and food systems more nutrition-sensitive. African farm households are known to consume a sizeable part of what they produce at home. Less is known about how much subsistence agriculture actually contributes to household diets, and how this contribution changes seasonally. We use representative data from rural Ethiopia covering every month of one full year to address this knowledge gap.