Agricultural Development, Nutrition and Health:

Synergies or Tradeoffs?

C-FARE Organized Symposium at the AAEA annual meetings Washington, DC -- 6 August 2013

Will MastersProfessor and Chair, Department of Food and Nutrition Policy, Tufts University

www.nutrition.tufts.edu | http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters

Nutrition makes for good headlines...

Source: K. Fuglie and S. L. Wang, “New Evidence Points to Robust but Uneven Productivity Growth in Global Agriculture,” Amber Waves, September 2012. Washington: Economic Research Service, USDA.

From Malthus...

Is food now sufficiently abundant that it no longer constrains nutrition & health?

to Rosling

Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization.

Some regions are still far from abundance

Food supply and real income by region, 1990-2010

Africa has the least food, and is also the poorest

Overall, malnutrition is a disease of poverty0

2040

6080

WH

Z <

-2 o

r >

+2

am

on

g c

hild

ren

un

de

r 5

4 6 8 10 12Log of real income (purchasing power in 2005 US dollars

Note: Data shown are for 1970-99 (darker shading) and 2000-2010 (lighter shading), with 95% confidence intervals around linear regressions. Sample sizes are N=244 across 115 countries for 1970-1999 and N=276 across 125 countries for 2000-2011. Source: Author's calculation. Income data are from Penn World Table Version 7.1 (Nov. 2012), online at https://pwt.sas.upenn.edu. Overweight and stunting estimates are from WHO, Global Health Observatory Data Repository, downloaded 2 Aug. 2013 from http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.1096.

(WHO estimates, N=441 from 118 countries)

All child malnutrition (stunting or overweight) and real income, 1970-99 and 2000-10

...and many non-dietary factors intervene e.g. sanitation and disease

Note: Observations are nationally representative country totals from 130 DHS surveys in 65 countries, 1990-2010, with circles are proportional to population. Source: Dean Spears (2013), http://riceinstitute.org.

India

Exposure to open defecation and childrens’ height-for-age by country, 1990-2010

A variety of logical frameworks are used to diagnose problems and guide intervention

The UNICEF framework

The FAO FIVIMS framework

Each logical framework posits similarbut somewhat different relationships

The Massett (2011) framework, with 7 IFPRI-USAID pathways highlighted by Webb (2013)

The Gillespie et al. (2012) framework

The causal framework of economics makes a specific prediction

Source: W.A. Masters, “Economic Development, Government Policies and Food Consumption”, chapter 14 in Jayson Lusk, Jutta Roosen and Jason Shogren, eds., Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Food Consumption and Policy, 2011.

If households are actively trading, then farm production could be separable from consumption

Diets and health then depend on income, prices,access and use, rather than justfarm production...

How do recent studies of agriculture’s nutritional impacts define “agriculture”?

Source: Webb P, Kennedy E. 2012. Impacts of Agriculture on Nutrition: Nature of the Evidence and Research Gaps. Research Briefing Paper No. 4. Boston, MA: Feed the Future Nutrition Innovation Lab.

Review paper Number

of studies reviewed

Period of studies

reviewedAgricultural activities included

Ruel (2001) 14 1995-1999 Home gardens, small ruminants, aqua-culture

Berti et al. (2004) 30 1985-2001 Home gardens, animal husbandry, irrigation, cash cropping, credit, land distribution

LeRoy & Frongillo (2007) 14 1987-2003 Animal husbandry, aquaculture, poultry, credit, behavior change communication (BCC)

World Bank (2007) 52 1985-2007 All forms of agriculture activity

Haider & Bhutta (2008) 29 1985-2004 Home gardens, animal husbandry, BCC

Kawarazuka (2010) 23 2000-2009 Aquaculture

Masset et al. (2011) 23 1990-2009 Biofortification, home gardens, aquaculture, poultry, husbandry, dairy development.

Arimond et al. (2011) 39 1987-2003 All forms of agriculture activity

Girard et al. (2012) 37 1990- Home gardens, biofortification, BCC, husbandry, poultry, aquaculture

Recent Evidence Reviews of the Impacts of Agriculture on Nutrition

Source: Calculated from UN Population Division, World Population Projections (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp), accessed 11 Aug 2012, based on UN Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision (April 2011).

1950

-195

5

1960

-196

5

1970

-197

5

1980

-198

5

1990

-199

5

2000

-200

5

2010

-201

5

2020

-202

5

2030

-203

5

2040

-204

5

2050

-205

5-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

SS Africa

World

So Asia

Rural population growth eventually falls below zero;land per farmer can then expand with mechanization

Africa had over 2% annual growth in the rural population, for over 30 years!

Rural population growth rates by region, 1950-2055

Meanwhile, farmers face rapid, sustained rural population growth & falling land/worker

2013

Africa is now experiencing Asia’s earlier slowdown in rural

population growth, but less quickly

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

2030

2040

2050

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

WorldSSAfricaSoAsia

Africa had the world’s most severe demographic burden (>90 children per 100 adults)

Child and elderly dependency rates by region (0-15 and 65+), 1950-2055

...and have unprecedented numbers of children per adult earner or care-giver

Africa is now experiencing Asia’s earlier "demographic gift",

 but less quickly

Source: Calculated from UN Population Division, World Population Projections (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp), accessed 11 Aug 2012, based on UN Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision (April 2011).

2013

19601962

19641966

19681970

19721974

19761978

19801982

19841986

19881990

19921994

19961998

20002002

20042006

20082010

20120.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

World

Southeast Asia

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

USDA estimates of average cereal grain yields (mt/ha), 1960-2013

Source: Calculated from USDA , PS&D data (www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline), downloaded 2 Aug 2013. Results shown are each region’s total production per harvested area in barley, corn, millet, mixed grains, oats, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat.

It’s never too late for a green revolution

Higher agricultural productivity lifts farmers out of poverty and into the dietary transition

Source: FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture  2013: Food Systems for Better Nutrition. Rome: FAO, June.

Beyond Malthus, universal challenges: Socioeconomic inequality, diet quality etc...