Food Policy最新文献

Using nationally representative household survey data and the multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) procedure, this study examines the productivity, food security, and poverty reduction effects of adopting improved seed and inorganic fertilizer in rural Zimbabwe. The results show that the joint adoption of improved seed and inorganic fertilizer is facilitated by household ownership of farm mechanization, years of education of the household heads, presence of a wage worker in the household, access to irrigation facilities, and government extension services. The MESR results show that the adoption of improved seed and inorganic fertilizer, as well as their joint usage, have productivity and welfare-enhancing effects on farming households in rural Zimbabwe. More importantly, we find that while the technologies appear to impact food consumption negatively, households using the technologies jointly in production are more food secure and eat more diverse foods. This implies government efforts to promote the joint adoption of the two technologies in rural Zimbabwe are encouraged.

The world has been experiencing a notable increase in disease outbreaks that have resulted in significant economic impacts and loss of life, both human and livestock. Here we consider the economic impacts of such an outbreak in a small (price-taking), open country case. Specifically, we consider a generic disease outbreak in the Canadian pork industry. The economic costs and animal welfare impacts of a disease outbreak in swine could prove devastating to Canada’s pork industry, due to potential border closures and large-scale animal depopulation. We build a multi-region, partial equilibrium trade model composed of three Canadian regions (Ontario, Quebec, and Western Canada), the United States, and the rest of the world. The partial equilibrium model imposes the appropriate zero feedback assumption (across world markets and domestic substitutes). Each Canadian region has a vertically integrated supply chain beginning with the breeding herd, progressing through the live animal market, processors, to end consumers with trade across regions within each of those markets. We estimate the Canadian economic impacts of a disease outbreak occurring in excess of $3.6 billion. The closure of international borders to exports is shown to be the dominant economic impact. Significant producer and processor losses are marginally offset by consumer benefits.

This study examines the effect of agricultural input subsidy cards and extension services on Bangladesh’s rice productivity, using plot level panel data from three waves (2011–2019) of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey. To control for endogeneity of the two programs, instrumental variable and control function approaches are used. Findings reveal that access to input subsidy cards and extension services raise productivity in rice-planted plots by nearly 20% and 22%, respectively. Further, the channels and type of advisory services matter. Finally, access to input subsidy cards and extension services is more beneficial in areas prone to droughts and excessive rainfall. These findings underscore the value of complementary investments in robust extension systems, especially in vulnerable regions, to optimize the performance of input subsidy programs. Expanded extension services coupled with input subsidies can be an effective policy mix to raise productivity, strengthen climate resilience, and promote inclusive agricultural growth in Bangladesh.

Improved crop varieties help farmers adapt to changing climate and socioeconomic challenges. They are essential for meeting the global food demand, but their adoption remains slow and low. One reason for this unsuccessful adoption is the disregard of trait preferences and marginalized contexts of diverse users by actors in varietal development and delivery. The general wisdom regarding trait preferences includes gender-distinct priorities, in which men focus on high yield and marketability, while women prefer good taste and other cooking attributes. However, although gender is a first step toward nuanced preferences, most analyses restrict themselves to gender-based comparisons (frequently using the sex of heads of households), which homogenizes socioeconomic conditions and preferences within gender. Using intrahousehold preference data, our study reveals that the intersection between gender and other social categories presents compounded marginalization that corresponds to similarities or differences in women’s and men’s trait preferences. Cluster analysis reveals that trait preferences of women and men overlap but differ in the traits’ relative importance. Trait preferences are comparable in low-wealth clusters as they operate in similar marginalized contexts and diverge in high-wealth clusters. Furthermore, logit regression shows that factors of marginalization, gender roles, and agency are associated with increased odds of prioritizing specific traits, such as market and culinary traits. Our results demonstrate how diversity of marginalization and intersectionality matters more than gender dichotomies. We anticipate that our intersectional approach to understanding gendered trait preferences can enhance targeted, demand-led, and inclusive varietal development and delivery in the future.

Introduction

Institutional investors have considerable potential to positively contribute to shifts towards healthier, more sustainable food systems. However, food systems issues are not systematically taken into account by investors as part of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. This study aimed to identify current approaches to investment decision making regarding food systems issues and ways to facilitate increased consideration of food systems issues as part of investment decision-making in Australia.

Methods

We conducted focus groups (15 participants) supplemented by in-depth interviews (19 participants) with financial sector and related civil society stakeholders. Data was thematically analysed, guided by an investment decision-making framework.

Results

Participants saw opportunity to include food systems issues as part of investment decision-making processes, including screening, engagement and divestment. Greater investor action could be accelerated by a clear investment case for action; cohesive metrics and reporting; and strong advocacy and coalition building.

Conclusion

Holistic incorporation of food systems issues as part of ESG considerations has substantial potential to drive positive food systems transformation.

We investigate how a government subsidy for dining out to support the restaurant industry has been associated with economic and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Using nationwide 500-meter mesh data, we demonstrate that Japan’s Go To Eat scheme, which was gradually introduced across all prefectures beginning in October 2020, mitigated the negative impact of the pandemic on population mobility in restaurant areas, while having little association with the spread of COVID-19 afterward. The influence was particularly large for population mobility within a prefecture and in restaurant areas near train stations. The scheme also had diminishing positive spillover effects around the restaurant areas. The findings imply that such a subsidy can be a balanced policy response to the pandemic once epidemiological factors are properly managed.

Though improved forage varieties have the potential to supply high quality feed for livestock and optimize livestock nutrition and production, demand for them in developing countries is low. To inform interventions aiming to increase demand for the improved forages such as pricing, we assessed farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different improved seeds and two types of dried feed in Meru County Kenya. We used a mix of sampling strategies to recruit 356 dairy farmers into the study. We used the Becker-De-Groote Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit WTP, and a mixed effects model in the analysis. We find that the WTP for the forage products (except one) was below the market prices, and that the WTP differed significantly between farmers in cooperatives and those that were not. For related varieties, none is significantly superior to other varieties in terms of WTP. We also find that farmers who had prior exposure to the forages, larger farm sizes, mainly practiced zero grazing, and owned the livestock were more likely to bid above the market prices. Our results underscore the need for strategies that can lower the prices of the improved forages such as reducing the costs associated with their production, certification, storage, and transportation. Training farmers especially on the benefits of the improved traits can potentially increase the likelihood of farmers paying premiums for the improved traits, an important ingredient for the commercialization of the improved forage products at scale.

In the past decades, the Government of Ethiopia implemented widespread interventions with the objective of modernizing the agricultural sector and stimulating transformative growth. This paper assesses the agricultural yields and food security impacts of those interventions. Combining project and remote-sensing data with a nationally representative household panel survey, we identify impacts by exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the roll-out of the interventions implemented by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency from 2011 to 2016. Results show that large-scale agricultural interventions are associated with higher agricultural yields and better food security outcomes. These outcomes underscore the linkages that persist between agricultural development and food security for rural households living in mostly agrarian economies and the potential for systems-wide interventions to catalyze agricultural transformation.