Food Policy最新文献

Women’s empowerment has been associated with improved nutritional outcomes in various settings. However, the gains from empowerment do not necessarily accrue to different members of the same household in the same manner. Furthermore, the relationship between empowerment and nutrition itself is likely to be shaped by the overall level of development in a given region. This paper investigates the heterogeneity in the association between women’s empowerment in nutrition index (WENI) and quality of intra-household diets between men and women when spatial variations in the levels of urbanization are accounted for, in India. We use intrahousehold dietary intake data for 60,000 men and women from the fourth round of India’s National Family Health Survey and conceptualize women’s empowerment using the women’s empowerment in nutrition index (WENI). We use geospatial data on nightlights as a proxy for the urban continuum. Nightlights intensity (NTL) captures the growth of smaller towns (between large urban cities and rural areas) that has characterized urbanization in India. A multilevel modeling approach indicates that a unit increase in WENI scores is associated with an improvement in women’s diet diversity scores by 0.19 units, with no significant association for men’s diet diversity. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this finding holds at all NTL terciles. Alongside the role of WENI, we find that a doubling of NTL is associated with an increase in diet diversity scores by atleast 7–8% for both men and women, across wealth quintiles. These results emphasize the need for targeted approaches based on spatial heterogeneity in growth and development within a country when investing in the empowerment-nutrition pathway.

In many emerging countries, agri-food value chains are transforming rapidly. One emblematic trend is the proliferation of supermarkets and other modern retailers. Supermarkets affect the way supply chains are organized and may also influence the types of foods purchased and eaten by consumers. Research on what this means for people’s diets and nutrition is still relatively scant. Here, we analyze the effects of supermarkets on child diets and nutrition in China, using nationally representative panel data with information on households’ access to supermarkets and individual-level dietary and anthropometric indicators. Employing a variety of difference-in-difference approaches, we find that improved access to supermarkets leads to higher child dietary diversity and nutrient intakes, especially among children in rural areas and from low-income households. Supermarkets are also found to increase child height, but not weight. The positive nutritional effects are mediated through supermarkets contributing to more variety in local food supplies and lower average food prices. Our findings suggest that the spread of supermarkets has improved child dietary quality and nutrition in China.

In the agricultural household literature, empirical tests of separability between production and consumption decisions commonly exploit theoretical predictions of household labor allocation. Many of these studies rely on data that asks respondents to recall labor usage over the entire growing season. Two recent field experiments in Tanzania and Ghana show that such labor use data, collected at the end of the growing season, is a systematically unreliable measure of actual labor allocation. In this study, we examine how inaccurate measures of labor influence the reliability of market failure tests based on separability. In Ghana, we find no statistical evidence that recall bias influences the reliability of the separability test. In Tanzania, we find that recall bias increases the probability that such tests fail to reject separability. Thus, we find partial evidence that classic tests based on typical household survey labor data may erroneously conclude that markets are adequately functioning.

Carbon labeling facilitates the evaluation of carbon emissions throughout the entire food production process. Consumer interpretation of food labels is subject to context. We conduct an online discrete choice experiment in four Chinese cities to investigate the potential how social desirability bias (SDB) may affect consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for milk carbon labels. Our findings indicate that failing to account for SDB leads to skewed WTP estimates. We observe a significant presence of SDB in WTP for carbon labels, particularly among respondents under subject to injunctive social-norm treatment. Additionally, our research shows that SDB can manifest differently among consumers with varying levels of environmental commitment. This research provides crucial insights for both policymakers and marketers in food carbon labeling. It highlights the importance of considering SDB and emphasizes the necessity of developing tailored strategies across different consumer segments.

This study explores the impact of fertilizer (urea) prices on local deforestation by exploiting the exogenous variation in the world price of urea inclusive of trade costs from the world market to the local market. The empirical analysis relies on a unique geo-coded dataset on the market price of urea across 158 subnational hub markets in 21 African countries and satellite-derived forest loss estimates over the period 2003 – 2012. The results suggest that fertilizer prices positively affect deforestation rate and forest cover loss. On average, a 1 % increase in local urea prices corresponds to 97.65 Ha of forest loss within a particular local market catchment. Specifically, the results reveal a price elasticity of approximatively 1 between urea prices and forest loss. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the effects of urea prices on forest loss tend to be concentrated in markets with subtropical and tropical ecological features. Furthermore, I provide evidence for the land-conversion mechanism, implying that urea prices are positively associated with the expansion of agricultural land. Estimating an event study around exposure to a sustained jump in urea prices reveals a persistent response of deforestation and forest cover loss to fertilizer prices.

First Nations peoples have the right to participate in all decisions affecting them. This includes food policy decision-making. In the Australian state of Victoria, the Food Policies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (FoodPATH) project aimed to determine the food policy actions that are likely to be effective and acceptable for Victorian Aboriginal Communities. Community-based workshops were held with six Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) in urban and regional Victoria during 2022. A team of at least three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander facilitators guided participants (n = 53) through a series of workshop activities using group model building methods. Group model building is a participatory systems science research method which enables community stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of the system-level drivers of complex problems and co-design actions to address them. Workshop discussions coincided with real-time creation of a visual system map of the interconnected determinants of food choice. Participants used these maps to develop and prioritise actions for improving food environments and nutrition in the community. Participants identified a diverse array of interconnected factors influencing food choice and nutrition in Aboriginal Communities across Victoria. Food access and affordability, junk food marketing, food knowledge and skills and diet and disease were common themes across all sites, while access to junk food, growing local food, traditional Aboriginal foods, and family, Community and culture were key themes in most sites. Results informed a Community-driven agenda, comprising five Community-led actions and five government policy recommendations for improving food environments and nutrition for Victorian Aboriginal Communities.

As over-consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is considered a major contributor to the rising prevalence of obesity and associated diseases, public authorities from different countries are considering the introduction of SSBs taxation. In this study, we evaluate the potential impact of the upcoming Italian sugar tax on SSBs and sugar consumption, also accounting for differences across socio-economic groups. We also analyze alternative SSBs tax designs (i.e., excise tax on sugar and two-tier tax based on sugar content) to compare their effectiveness and provide a more general analysis about the outcomes of SSBs taxation. In our empirical analysis, we first estimate consumers’ demand for SSBs using the random coefficient logit demand model (Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes, 1995) and Nielsen Household Panel data of SSBs purchases for the period 2019–2020. Then, the estimated demand parameters and marginal costs for SSBs are employed to conduct counterfactual simulations to derive the new market equilibria under the simulated SSBs tax scheme scenarios. Our results show that the Italian sugar tax is the most effective in reducing SSBs and sugar consumption (on average, by 18% and 24% respectively) among all the simulated tax scenarios. This is also due to the strategic reactions of SSBs manufacturers who over-shift the change in marginal cost (i.e., tax rate) to final prices. Moreover, despite being financially regressive, taxes on SSBs may be progressive from a health perspective, as low-income groups experience the greatest fall in SSBs and sugar consumption. Reinvesting tax revenues in health-related programs targeting the most vulnerable socio-economic groups (i.e., low-income households with children) may minimize the regressivity of SSBs taxes.

African swine fever (ASF) has never been detected in the U.S., but the current global outbreak threatens to change that. Although ASF poses no known risk to human health and is not a food safety concern, little is known about the response in U.S. consumer demand in case of an outbreak. We use an online survey experiment, following the one-and-one-half-bound dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach to estimate changes in consumers’ willingness to pay for pork in case of an ASF outbreak. Using these estimates, we find that demand for unprocessed pork (processed pork) products in the U.S. is predicted to shift downward by approximately 32 % (30 %) in the case of an ASF outbreak. Overall, the total annual welfare loss is predicted to be $55.46 billion in the pork market. We find that those consumers who are unaware about ASF, perceive it to be a risk to human health, and eat pork infrequently have a relatively larger reduction in willingness to pay for pork following an outbreak. Further, about 23 % of the survey respondents would stop purchasing pork products altogether following an ASF outbreak. Results also indicate that government institutions are most trusted when it comes to sharing news about food safety, strongly suggesting the importance of public institutions in generating awareness prior to and during an ASF outbreak.

Voluntary food reformulation agreements may often be ineffective due to a lack of industry compliance. This paper examines demand responses and resulting (dis)incentives for companies to reduce the sugar content of children’s cereals in Germany. We estimate the effects of sugar content on consumer choices using a random-coefficient logit model. Subsequently, we simulate how simultaneous and unilateral sugar reductions affect sales, sugar quantities purchased, and consumer welfare. The results identify simultaneous sugar reduction as being most effective in reducing sugar uptake and less harmful to firms’ sales compared to unilateral reformulation. Product reformulation is not strongly compromised by substitution behaviour.