Transcript Long-Term Trends in Food Security: Africa’s Coming Turnaround

Agricultural Development,
Nutrition and Health:
Synergies or Tradeoffs?
Will Masters
Professor and Chair, Department of Food and Nutrition Policy, Tufts University
www.nutrition.tufts.edu | http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters
C-FARE Organized Symposium at the AAEA annual meetings
Washington, DC -- 6 August 2013
Nutrition makes for
good headlines...
Is food now sufficiently abundant that it no
longer constrains nutrition & health?
From
Malthus...
to
Rosling
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.
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
Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization.
Overall, malnutrition is a disease of poverty
All child malnutrition (stunting or overweight) and real income, 1970-99 and 2000-10
0
20
40
60
80
(WHO estimates, N=441 from 118 countries)
4
6
8
10
Log 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.
12
...and many non-dietary factors intervene
e.g. sanitation and disease
Exposure to open defecation and childrens’ height-for-age
by country, 1990-2010
India
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.
A variety of logical frameworks are used to
diagnose problems and guide intervention
The UNICEF framework
The FAO FIVIMS framework
Each logical framework posits similar
but 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
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 just
farm production...
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.
How do recent studies of agriculture’s
nutritional impacts define “agriculture”?
Recent Evidence Reviews of the Impacts of Agriculture on Nutrition
Review paper
Number Period of
of studies studies
reviewed reviewed
Agricultural activities included
Ruel (2001)
14
Berti et al. (2004)
30
LeRoy & Frongillo (2007)
14
1995-1999 Home gardens, small ruminants, aqua-culture
Home gardens, animal husbandry, irrigation,
1985-2001 cash cropping, credit, land distribution
Animal husbandry, aquaculture, poultry, credit,
1987-2003 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
Masset et al. (2011)
23
2000-2009 Aquaculture
Biofortification, home gardens, aquaculture,
1990-2009 poultry, husbandry, dairy development.
Arimond et al. (2011)
39
Girard et al. (2012)
37
1987-2003 All forms of agriculture activity
Home gardens, biofortification, BCC, husbandry,
1990poultry, aquaculture
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.
Meanwhile, farmers face rapid, sustained
rural population growth & falling land/worker
Rural population growth rates by region, 1950-2055
2.5
Africa had over 2% annual growth in
the rural population, for over 30 years!
2.0
Africa is now experiencing Asia’s
earlier slowdown in rural
population growth,
but less quickly
1.5
1.0
0.5
2013
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
Rural population growth
eventually falls below zero;
land per farmer can then
expand with mechanization
SS Africa
World
So Asia
-1.5
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).
...and have unprecedented numbers of
children per adult earner or care-giver
Child and elderly dependency rates by region (0-15 and 65+), 1950-2055
Africa had the world’s most
severe demographic burden
(>90 children per 100 adults)
100
90
Africa is now experiencing Asia’s
earlier "demographic gift",
but less quickly
80
70
2013
60
World
SSAfrica
SoAsia
50
40
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).
It’s never too late for a green revolution
USDA estimates of average cereal grain yields (mt/ha), 1960-2013
3.5
World
3.0
Southeast Asia
South Asia
2.5
Sub-Saharan Africa
2.0
1.5
1.0
2012
2010
2008
2006
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1970
1968
1966
1964
1962
1960
0.5
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.
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...