10 minute abstract-driven presentations.  

Speakers and Presentations:

Chair: Paula Dominguez-Salas, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

• Vijay Laxmi Pandey, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, India 
  Responsiveness of rural households to pulse price rise: A qualitative study
  Recording / Slides

• Derek Headey, IFPRI, USA
  The relative price of healthy and unhealthy foods in 176 countries: Implications for food and nutrition policies
  Recording / Slides

• Brian Chisanga, IAPRI, Zambia 
  The Changing Food Expenditure Patterns and Trends in Zambia: Implications on Agricultural Policies
  Recording / Slides

Abstracts:

Responsiveness of rural households to pulse price rise: A qualitative study

Vijay Laxmi Pandey, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, India 

Introduction:  The accelerating prices of pulses in India over the last few years have posed constraints on its consumption, thus affecting the protein supply especially to the poor. Given widespread and chronic malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies in India, the coping mechanism of Indian households to rising prices is of particular concern. The objective of this paper is to access the consumption coping strategy adopted by households to mitigate the effect of high price of pulses. There is a differential impact of food inflation on different categories of households, which subsequently determines the type of coping strategy adopted and its perceived severity

Methods:  This paper uses the focus group discussions (FGD) to focus on household coping strategies in response to recent food price spikes in India and the perceived barriers to adoption of pulses production. This paper focuses on the states of Bihar and Odisha which are amongst the poorest states of India suffering from high levels of hunger and malnutrition. Three districts of Bihar and four districts of Odisha are chosen for the purpose. From each selected district, two villages (one small and one large) were selected on the basis of its total population. As a first step coping strategies were identified and ranked by the people through FGD. In each village, eight focus group discussions (four for men and four for women) were conducted, and a total of 104 FGDs were conducted for the study. FGDs were conducted by the lead researchers with trained research assistants as the note taker. The discussions were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim in English by the research assistants. Immediately after the meeting of each focus group, the ideas or information that had arisen were arranged under appropriate headings as the summary notes. Further, the transcripts were analysed and arranged under different themes using NVIVO 11.

Findings:  The most severe coping strategy, stop eating pulses, is adopted by only those scheduled caste and scheduled tribes (SC/STs) who are landless in Odisha whereas, in Bihar, it is adopted by both, landless SC/STs and landless general category households. Substitution of pulses by other food-category is almost equally adopted by all the four groups in both the states. Substitution by the same food-category is also adopted by all the groups in both the States, but the adoption is mostly dominated by large farmers. Large farmers are mostly curtailing the quantity of the most preferred pulses (by decreasing the portion size at each serving or frequency of consumption) and substitute it with other less preferred pulses and other vegetables. Marginal farmers are also curtailing the quantity of preferred pulses by decreased frequency and the portion size and also the rationing of adult intake in favour of children intake of pulses. Rainfall, unavailability of the market and spurious seen quality are among the major perceived barriers to pulses production. Pluses are considered to be a marginal crop. In the absence of quality seeds and timely availability of hired labours, the farmers perceived its cultivation risky.

Conclusions:  The analysis concludes that there are little resources for landless groups to hedge them against food inflation, which has serious consequences for nutrition security. Therefore, we recommend that pulses should be covered under the PDS system as a priority. The government should make provision of certified highquality seeds of pulses of HYV locally available to the farmers and facilitate them with the provision of crop Insurance to reduce risk. We, also recommend the provision of extension services to the farmers to help them with selecting suitable pulse crop, according to the soil and other related information for better yield.

The relative price of healthy and unhealthy foods in 176 countries: Implications for food and nutrition policies

Derek Headey, IFPRI, USA

Introduction:  Although economists and nutritionists have long viewed income and knowledge as primary constraints on the diversification of diets, the high prices of nutrient-rich foods may also be important. Since many nutrient-rich foods are highly perishable, their relative price is likely to vary substantially across countries, and likely to be determined by local food production and trade characteristics. In contrast, relatively unhealthy staple foods and processed foods are more likely to obey the so called "law of one price", with prices varying little across countries. This paper investigates if these hypotheses are supported by internationally comparable price data from 176 countries

Methods:  We use data on the prices of various foods for 176 countries from the 2011 round of the International Comparison Program (ICP), a project led by the World Bank for the purposes of constructing internationally comparable estimates of GDP and poverty. For each country we construct a novel measure of relative prices, the ratio of a given food (e.g. "large brown eggs") relative to the price of the cheapest cereal in each country. The selection of cereals as a base product is justified by their universal consumption, high tradability, and the fact that they are one of the cheapest sources of calories. We construct relative prices for 20 widely consumed foods, and compare means and variation across foods and across regions using graphs and maps. All price ratios are measure in quantity or caloric terms to facilitate price comparisons across different foods. We use least squares regressions to assess whether cross-country variation in relative food prices explains the consumption patterns of children aged 6-23 months, after controlling for GDP per capita. Finally, we examine why food prices vary across regions by comparing their association with productivity indicators and agroecological characteristics, as well as characteristics of the ICP survey.

Findings:  We have five main findings: (1) Relative prices for more tradable foods vary little across countries, and are generally as cheap as cereals (in quantity terms). Many such foods are relatively unhealthy, however, being high in fat and carbohydrates and low in essential micronutrients and protein (oils, sugar, salt, soft drinks, and various roots and tubers). (2) Relative prices of healthy fruits and vegetables vary more across countries, but are typically relatively affordable. (3) Relative prices of animal sourced foods (ASFs) vary substantially across countries and are often very expensive sources of calories. ASFs are 5-15 times as expensive in low income countries compared to OECD countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. (4) Children's consumption of vegetal foods is not strongly associated with GDP per capita or prices of vegetal foods; in contrast, GDP and relative ASF prices are strongly associated with ASF consumption. (5) Prices of ASFs are strongly associated with production characteristics. Livestock diseases appear to be a major cause of high ASF prices in Africa along with various downstream value chain bottlenecks that limit the storability and tradability of these foods

Conclusions:  These findings demonstrate that the relative prices of healthy foods, particularly ASFs, vary much more across countries than the prices for unhealthy foods. This finding contradicts the claims of several studies that certain nutrient-rich foods, such as eggs, are relatively cheap (Iannotti et al. 2013; 2014); eggs are cheap in high income countries, but 5-15 times as expensive in low income countries. These data have several caveats. First, ICP price data are somewhat urban biased, though we can for this problem and it does not affect our central finding that prices are associated with children's diets. Second, while the ICP strives for product comparability, we cannot rule out the possibility that price differences are partly explained by quality differences. Page | 18 Our findings have important policy implications. Given the strong association between ASF consumption and linear growth, the expensiveness of ASFs in developing countries may be an important underlying determinant of stunting. This suggests that conventional remedies for monotonous diets - income and behavioral change interventions - may be less effective for poor populations facing extremely high ASF prices. This justifies an important role for food policies targeting productivity, value chain efficiency, infrastructure and trade to drive down the relative prices of nutritious foods.

The Changing Food Expenditure Patterns and Trends in Zambia: Implications on Agricultural Policies

Brian Chisanga, IAPRI, Zambia 

Introduction:  Zambia, like many other African countries is undergoing rapid urbanization and rising per capita income accompanied by rising population . These broad changes are expected to drive the transformation in consumption patterns. However, there is lack of evidence on how food consumption patterns have changed among households in urban and rural Zambia. Failure to recognize these changes may have led to the mismatch between agricultural policies and consumer preferences. Against this background, this study sought to understand the changing consumption patterns in Zambia and the implications of this transformation on food policy, food market and rural development.

Methods:  The main source of data for the study was the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) data collected in 1996, 1998 and 2010 and 2015 by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of Zambia. The LCMS datasets are nationally representative survey data collected over time, and contain among other variables, expenditures on food items. The LCMS serve as the official source for national poverty statistics. The sample size in each of the LCMS datasets used in the study were as follows: 1996 (11,961 households), 1998 (16,443 households), 2010 (19,313 households) and 2015 (12,251 households). The analysis of expenditure patterns of households was conducted in order to determine changes in consumption patterns . The expenditure share of each food item out of total food expenditure (expressed as a percentage) was used to examined how the share of total households budgets are allocated across the different foods and how this has changed over the years. The food items were categorized into the following sub-groups: food groups, commodity groups and level of processing . Comparison of expenditure shares was also done between rural and urban areas and between different income groups.

Findings:  The study finds major declines in the shares of food expenditure on maize among rural and urban households between 1996 and 2015. Corresponding to this drop in maize shares, urban households showed a significant increase in wheat expenditure shares while rural households reduced the share of other coarse grains and tubers. Wealthier households spent larger shares of their food expenditure on wheat, rice and potatoes. While poorer households reduced their share of maize expenditures, they have not sufficiently substituted maize with other staples. Transformation of food consumption patterns is prominently among high income households, mainly in urban areas. Wealthier households increased their share of expenditure on animal foods much more than poorer households did. At the same time, poorer households doubled the expenditure share on vegetables. There was also an increase in the expenditure shares of perishable and processed food in both rural and urban areas, representing opportunities in agro-processing and fresh produce sub-sectors. The changing pattern of food consumption is consistent with rising incomes and rapid urbanization. However, the disparities between the different income groups and between rural and urban areas is indicative of the rise in income inequality both in urban and rural parts of Zambia.

Conclusions:  The study demonstrates that food expenditure patterns have changed quite dramatically over the years especially among the urban and more affluent households. Thus, the beginnings of dietary transformation in Zambia is evident from the reduction in households’ expenditure shares on staple foods and the increase in the share of other foods. However, the variations between urban and rural households as well as across the different income groups, are an indication of growing income inequality as well as the concentration of income growth among urban households. These patterns could be a result of changing preferences as per capita income grows and in some cases prices. Maize centric policies, however, have not kept pace with these changes. Thus, Zambia’s agricultural policies have failed to recognize that consumption patterns have changed over time. Page | 20 The increased prominence of vegetable expenditures among the poor, especially in rural areas, may be indicative of increases in quantities consumed, but may equally be an indicator of higher prices for this food group. Combined with our findings on the low share of nutritious animal foods in low-income food expenditures, this raises concerns over the nutritional quality of diets in poor households, especially in rural areas