Rural Food Markets and Child Nutrition

Abstract

Child dietary diversity is poor in much of rural Africa and developing Asia, prompting significant efforts to leverage agriculture to improve diets. However, growing recognition that even very poor rural households rely on markets to satisfy their demand for nutrient‐rich non‐staple foods warrants a much better understanding of how rural markets vary in their diversity, competitiveness, frequency and food affordability, and how such characteristics are associated with diets. This article addresses these questions using data from rural Ethiopia. Deploying a novel market survey in conjunction with an information‐rich household survey, we find that children in proximity to markets that sell more non‐staple food groups have more diverse diets. However, the association is small in absolute terms; moving from three non‐staple food groups in the market to six is associated with an increase in the number of non‐staple food groups consumed by ∼0.27 and the likelihood of consumption of any non‐staple food group by 10 percentage points. These associations are similar in magnitude to those describing the relationship between dietary diversity and household production diversity; moreover, for some food groups, notably dairy, we find that household and community production of that food is especially important. These modest associations may reflect several specific features of our sample which is situated in very poor, food‐insecure localities where even the relatively better off are poor in absolute terms and where, by international standards, relative prices for non‐staple foods are very high.

Prioritizing the Scale-Up of Evidence-Based Nutrition and Health Interventions to Accelerate Stunting Reduction in Ethiopia

“…The higher stunting prevalence in rural settings and poorer households is not surprising and is consistent with literature on the social and environmental determinants of stunting [16][17][18]. Indeed, access to basic health services, markets, education, and basic infrastructure are much more limited in rural than in urban areas of Ethiopia [19,20]. More remote areas in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, also have worse linear growth and dietary outcomes [21].…”

Affordability of the EAT–Lancet reference diet: a global analysis

“…Cost-of-living differences are substantial between rural and urban areas, 28 and are further complicated by differences in availability of different items. 29 Households with their own farms, gardens, or livestock might access their own production some of the year, and seasonality plays an important role in food prices and availability for food buyers as well. 30 A third kind of limitation concerns variation in nutritional needs because the EAT-Lancet reference diet and our cost of nutrient adequacy calculations pertain only to a typical adult woman, considers a limited set of nutrients, and overlooks differences in bioavailability across food groups.…”

Climate Variability and Child Nutrition: Findings from Sub-Saharan Africa

“…High temperatures and low precipitation are often associated with reductions in the output of many crops and corresponding changes in local and regional food supplies (Nelson et al 2014;Schlenker & Roberts 2009). There is also evidence that climatic change may affect the number of crops planted by smallholders, thereby affecting the nutritional diversity and quality of available food (Call et al 2019;Headey et al 2019;Tobin et al 2019). 1 The implication is that even if the local availability of food remains sufficient in terms of caloric requirements, there may be not be enough nutritious food to maintain a healthy, well-nourished population.…”