Agricultural Commercialisation and Nutrition in Smallholder Farm Households

Abstract

Commercialisation of smallholder agriculture is important for rural economic growth. While previous studies have analysed effects of commercialisation on productivity and income, implications for farm household nutrition have received much less attention. We evaluate the effects of commercialisation on household food security and dietary quality with a special focus on calorie and micronutrient consumption. We also examine transmission channels by looking at the role of income, gender, and possible substitution effects between the consumption of own-produced and purchased foods. The analysis uses survey data from farm households in Kenya and a control function approach. Generalised propensity scores are employed to estimate continuous treatment effects. Commercialisation significantly improves food security and dietary quality in terms of calorie, zinc and iron consumption. For vitamin A, effects are insignificant. Commercialisation contributes to higher incomes and increased nutrients from purchased foods, but it does not reduce the consumption of nutrients from own-produced foods. Enhancing market access is important not only for rural economic growth, but also for making smallholder agriculture more nutrition-sensitive.

Market participation, household food security, and income: The case of cowpea producers in northern Nigeria

“…T i in Equation 6 is also potentially endogenous and this may arise because of unobserved heterogeneity, reverse causality, or measurement error, leading to biased estimates (Ogutu et al., 2019; Ogutu & Qaim, 2019). That is, the treatment variable T i may be correlated with the error terms in Equations 4 and 5.…”

“…Ogutu et al. (2019) for instance examined the impact of agricultural commercialization (including crops and livestock), on income and poverty in Kenya. They found that commercialization increased income by 17% and reduced the prevalence of poverty by 5.1 percentage points.…”

“…However, no conclusive evidence exists on its effect on food security and nutrition. On the one hand, there are studies which have shown that commercialization of agricultural produce is effective in improving food security and nutrition (e.g., Muriithi & Matz, 2015; Ogutu, Gödecke, & Qaim, 2017; Ogutu, Gödecke, & Qaim, 2019; Ogutu & Qaim, 2019; Radchenko & Corral, 2018). On the other hand, studies such as Carletto, Corral, and Guelfi (2017) found little evidence that agricultural commercialization has a positive effect on the nutritional status of smallholder farmers.…”

Impacts of Caregivers’ Nutrition Knowledge and Food Market Accessibility on Preschool Children’s Dietary Diversity in Remote Communities in Southeast Nigeria

“…Remoteness can undermine the efforts made to improve food security, feeding practices and diets by limiting access to quality food markets [41,42]. The contribution of market access in improving smallholder farmers' nutrition is documented in literature [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. However, empirical evidence on the nexus between accessibility to food market, caregivers' knowledge of appropriate diet for preschool children, and dietary diversity in Nigeria is scanty.…”

Impact of Poultry Farmers’ Participation in Modern Food Retail Markets on Household Dietary Diversity: Lessons from Southeast Nigeria

“…This makes the treatment endogenous and addressing the endogeneity of the treatment variable needs the identification of an instrument variable. A suitable instrument must not have any relationship with the outcome variables/dependent variables (exclusion criterion), but must be significantly related to the endogenous variable (relevance criterion) [41,42]. The instrument identified in this study is in contact with agricultural extension agents.…”