Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102913
William A. Masters
This Policy Comment describes how the Food Policy article entitled “Cost and affordability of nutritious diets at retail prices: Evidence from 177 countries” (first published October 2020) and “Retail consumer price data reveal gaps and opportunities to monitor food systems for nutrition” (first published September 2021) advanced the use of least-cost benchmark diets to monitor and improve food security. Those papers contributed to the worldwide use of least-cost diets as a new diagnostic indicator of food access, helping to distinguish among causes of poor diet quality related to high prices, low incomes, or displacement by other food options, thereby guiding intervention toward universal access to healthy diets.
{"title":"Tracking the affordability of least-cost healthy diets helps guide intervention for food security and improved nutrition","authors":"William A. Masters","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102913","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102913","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This Policy Comment describes how the <em>Food Policy</em> article entitled “Cost and affordability of nutritious diets at retail prices: Evidence from 177 countries” (first published October 2020) and “Retail consumer price data reveal gaps and opportunities to monitor food systems for nutrition” (first published September 2021) advanced the use of least-cost benchmark diets to monitor and improve food security. Those papers contributed to the worldwide use of least-cost diets as a new diagnostic indicator of food access, helping to distinguish among causes of poor diet quality related to high prices, low incomes, or displacement by other food options, thereby guiding intervention toward universal access to healthy diets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"137 ","pages":"Article 102913"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144548454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102905
Jonas Schmitt , Frank Offermann , Robert Finger
Crop production is exposed to many sources of biotic and abiotic risks, such as extreme weather, pests, and diseases. Crop diversification and crop insurance are both important risk management strategies for farmers. The two strategies are usually considered separately. Here, we propose to exploit potential synergies by including crop diversification in multiple crop yield insurance designs. We provide an ex-ante analysis to compare multiple-yield insurance, which covers the different crops together as a bundle, with single-yield insurances. To this end, we use historical farm-level yield observations for winter wheat, winter barley, winter rapeseed, sugar beet and grain maize in German agriculture (N = 113,463 historical farm-level yield observations during 1995–2019) and assess the implications for risk reduction, fair insurance premiums, and expected utility. In our analysis, we refer to the area-weighted and price-weighted revenues as the underlying for both insurance scenarios. We show that multiple-yield insurance is particularly attractive for highly risk-exposed farms because multiple-yield insurance has lower fair insurance premiums compared to insuring each crop separately. Moreover, the certainty equivalents in the multiple-yield insurance scenario are often higher than those in the single-yield insurances scenario, especially when the premium loadings are high. In addition, the fact that broader crop rotations and diversification are rewarded with lower premiums under multiple-yield insurance offers the potential to combine the overarching policy goals of agricultural risk management and diversification of agricultural landscapes.
{"title":"The use of crop diversification in agricultural yield insurance products","authors":"Jonas Schmitt , Frank Offermann , Robert Finger","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102905","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102905","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Crop production is exposed to many sources of biotic and abiotic risks, such as extreme weather, pests, and diseases. Crop diversification and crop insurance are both important risk management strategies for farmers. The two strategies are usually considered separately. Here, we propose to exploit potential synergies by including crop diversification in multiple crop yield insurance designs. We provide an ex-ante analysis to compare multiple-yield insurance, which covers the different crops together as a bundle, with single-yield insurances. To this end, we use historical farm-level yield observations for winter wheat, winter barley, winter rapeseed, sugar beet and grain maize in German agriculture (N = 113,463 historical farm-level yield observations during 1995–2019) and assess the implications for risk reduction, fair insurance premiums, and expected utility. In our analysis, we refer to the area-weighted and price-weighted revenues as the underlying for both insurance scenarios. We show that multiple-yield insurance is particularly attractive for highly risk-exposed farms because multiple-yield insurance has lower fair insurance premiums compared to insuring each crop separately. Moreover, the certainty equivalents in the multiple-yield insurance scenario are often higher than those in the single-yield insurances scenario, especially when the premium loadings are high. In addition, the fact that broader crop rotations and diversification are rewarded with lower premiums under multiple-yield insurance offers the potential to combine the overarching policy goals of agricultural risk management and diversification of agricultural landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 102905"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144549555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102910
Hayatullah Ahmadzai , Oliver Morrissey
Exposure to natural disasters in Afghanistan, notably flooding and other shocks exacerbated by climate change, poses a growing concern given the vulnerability of households to poverty and food insecurity. This paper uses two household surveys (2011/12 and 2013/14) to assess the effects of climate shocks (especially floods) on food security and welfare of agricultural households, allowing also for conflict and price shocks. We evaluate the impacts of shocks on several indicators of food security and household welfare comparing affected to non-affected households. The analysis is based on endogenous switching regressions (ESR) and propensity score matching (PSM) allowing for selection bias and addressing endogeneity. Floods are the main shock and have significant adverse effects on food security and welfare indicators. Affected households are likely to experience food diversity reduced from acceptable to moderate, increased food coping stress and two-thirds could be pushed from little to moderate or greater hunger. The estimated average treatment effect in 2013–14 implies a decrease of about a third in food consumption expenditures, with similar reductions in household income and farm revenue. The findings highlight the need for better disaster risk reduction and planning strategies to support affected populations to respond to and recover from climate shocks.
{"title":"Climate shocks, household food security and welfare in Afghanistan","authors":"Hayatullah Ahmadzai , Oliver Morrissey","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102910","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102910","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Exposure to natural disasters in Afghanistan, notably flooding and other shocks exacerbated by climate change, poses a growing concern given the vulnerability of households to poverty and food insecurity. This paper uses two household surveys (2011/12 and 2013/14) to assess the effects of climate shocks (especially floods) on food security and welfare of agricultural households, allowing also for conflict and price shocks. We evaluate the impacts of shocks on several indicators of food security and household welfare comparing affected to non-affected households. The analysis is based on endogenous switching regressions (ESR) and propensity score matching (PSM) allowing for selection bias and addressing endogeneity. Floods are the main shock and have significant adverse effects on food security and welfare indicators. Affected households are likely to experience food diversity reduced from acceptable to moderate, increased food coping stress and two-thirds could be pushed from little to moderate or greater hunger. The estimated average treatment effect in 2013–14 implies a decrease of about a third in food consumption expenditures, with similar reductions in household income and farm revenue. The findings highlight the need for better disaster risk reduction and planning strategies to support affected populations to respond to and recover from climate shocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 102910"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144581140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102906
Cecere Giuseppe , Azarkamand Sahar , Bala Alba , Sazdovski Ilija , Fullana-i-Palmer Pere , Rigamonti Lucia
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Assessing the social risk of high-protein food alternatives using the social life cycle assessment” [Food Policy 134 (2025) 102894]","authors":"Cecere Giuseppe , Azarkamand Sahar , Bala Alba , Sazdovski Ilija , Fullana-i-Palmer Pere , Rigamonti Lucia","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102906","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102906","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 102906"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144501171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102908
Nathan Morrow , Daniel Maxwell , Nancy B. Mock , Nicholas Haan , Neil K. Marsland , Erin Lentz
Food security information systems (FSIS) face unprecedented threats from abrupt shifts in political and funding priorities, misinformation, and manipulation. We draw on 50 years of research in Food Policy and the broader FSIS literature to offer five resilience characteristics to guide development of a future-fit FSIS: (1) safeguard integrity and impartiality; (2) ensure independent and transparent governance; (3) optimize data and analysis value streams for decision-making; (4) break down sectoral barriers for holistic food security characterization; and (5) innovate responsibly while embedding accountability and learning. We suggest recommended actions based on these resilience characteristics to co-create a more resilient FSIS ecosystem to guide humanitarian responses, advance preventive action for acute crises, and efficiently deliver results.
{"title":"Resilient food security information systems in the age of disruption: An ecosystem approach","authors":"Nathan Morrow , Daniel Maxwell , Nancy B. Mock , Nicholas Haan , Neil K. Marsland , Erin Lentz","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102908","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102908","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Food security information systems (FSIS) face unprecedented threats from abrupt shifts in political and funding priorities, misinformation, and manipulation. We draw on 50 years of research in<!--> <em>Food Policy</em> <!-->and the broader FSIS literature to offer five resilience characteristics to guide development of a future-fit FSIS: (1) safeguard integrity and impartiality; (2) ensure independent and transparent governance; (3) optimize data and analysis value streams for decision-making; (4) break down sectoral barriers for holistic food security characterization; and (5) innovate responsibly while embedding accountability and learning. We suggest recommended actions based on these resilience characteristics to co-create a more resilient FSIS ecosystem to guide humanitarian responses, advance preventive action for acute crises, and efficiently deliver results.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"137 ","pages":"Article 102908"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144502141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-26DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102903
Abigail Alexander-Haw , Joachim Schleich , Josephine Tröger
This paper examines how health-risk information related to meat consumption affects individual acceptability of a meat tax and mandatory meat-free days in canteens. Analyses draw on a representative survey including a randomised provision of health-risk information to approximately 2,000 individuals in France, Italy, and Latvia. Findings of multivariate analyses do not provide convincing evidence that the health-risk information enhances the acceptability of meat taxes and meat-free days. This finding is robust to a variety of robustness checks. Explorative heterogeneity analyses provide some suggestive evidence that providing health-risk information increases the acceptability of the policies for certain subgroups, but only in specific countries. Correlational results suggest that the acceptability of a meat tax and meat-free days is generally higher if individuals consider them to be less expensive, more effective, and fairer. Finally, the findings provide some limited evidence that acceptability of these policies is lower for individuals who are vulnerable to food insecurity.
{"title":"Does health-risk information increase the acceptability of a meat tax and meat free days? Experimental evidence from three European countries","authors":"Abigail Alexander-Haw , Joachim Schleich , Josephine Tröger","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102903","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102903","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how health-risk information related to meat consumption affects individual acceptability of a meat tax and mandatory meat-free days in canteens. Analyses draw on a representative survey including a randomised provision of health-risk information to approximately 2,000 individuals in France, Italy, and Latvia. Findings of multivariate analyses do not provide convincing evidence that the health-risk information enhances the acceptability of meat taxes and meat-free days. This finding is robust to a variety of robustness checks. Explorative heterogeneity analyses provide some suggestive evidence that providing health-risk information increases the acceptability of the policies for certain subgroups, but only in specific countries. Correlational results suggest that the acceptability of a meat tax and meat-free days is generally higher if individuals consider them to be less expensive, more effective, and fairer. Finally, the findings provide some limited evidence that acceptability of these policies is lower for individuals who are vulnerable to food insecurity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 102903"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144480412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Index-based Livestock insurance to support pastoralists against droughts","authors":"Nathaniel Jensen , Christopher Barrett , Andrew Mude , Rupsha Banerjee , Yuma Noritomo , Kelvin Shikuku , Kazushi Takahashi , Nils Teufel","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102909","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102909","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Policy Comments do not include an abstract. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/311580/call-for-policy-comments-for-food-policy).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"137 ","pages":"Article 102909"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144481489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102901
Marianne Bitler , Janet Currie , Hilary Hoynes , Krista Ruffini , Lisa Schulkind , Barton Willage
Free and reduced-price school lunches are available in nearly all public and some private schools, and most of these schools also offer the School Breakfast Program. Children’s eligibility for these programs is conditioned on having low income. An existing literature documents the effects of school meals and school meal nutrition standards on child outcomes, yet causal evidence on how this program affects nutritional intake is still lacking. We compare nutritional intake between the periods just before and just after the school year begins for children likely to be eligible for free school meals (incomes under 200% of the poverty guideline) versus students unlikely to be eligible for or participate in the program (incomes above 200% of the poverty guideline), using granular data we collected about school year start dates. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find access to school meals reduces caloric intake, driven by a reduction in soda consumption for younger children, and a reduction in total fat intake for older children. Given increasing obesity among school children and the specific ways that calories are reduced, these findings likely represent improvements in students’ diets. We do not find any statistically significant effects on food insecurity or any spillover effects onto mothers’ consumption or time spent on food activities, which suggests these effects come from changes in children’s access to school meals and not from other differences between the academic year and summer for school meal eligible vs. higher income families. These results suggest school meals programs can improve nutritional intake, and policymakers should consider this benefit when considering changes to availability such as expanding or reforming universal free meals programs.
{"title":"Effects of school meals on nutrition: Evidence from the start of the school year","authors":"Marianne Bitler , Janet Currie , Hilary Hoynes , Krista Ruffini , Lisa Schulkind , Barton Willage","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102901","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102901","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Free and reduced-price school lunches are available in nearly all public and some private schools, and most of these schools also offer the School Breakfast Program. Children’s eligibility for these programs is conditioned on having low income. An existing literature documents the effects of school meals and school meal nutrition standards on child outcomes, yet causal evidence on how this program affects nutritional intake is still lacking. We compare nutritional intake between the periods just before and just after the school year begins for children likely to be eligible for free school meals (incomes under 200% of the poverty guideline) versus students unlikely to be eligible for or participate in the program (incomes above 200% of the poverty guideline), using granular data we collected about school year start dates. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find access to school meals reduces caloric intake, driven by a reduction in soda consumption for younger children, and a reduction in total fat intake for older children. Given increasing obesity among school children and the specific ways that calories are reduced, these findings likely represent improvements in students’ diets. We do not find any statistically significant effects on food insecurity or any spillover effects onto mothers’ consumption or time spent on food activities, which suggests these effects come from changes in children’s access to school meals and not from other differences between the academic year and summer for school meal eligible vs. higher income families. These results suggest school meals programs can improve nutritional intake, and policymakers should consider this benefit when considering changes to availability such as expanding or reforming universal free meals programs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 102901"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144297412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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