Divorce Mixed Crop-Livestock Farming to Increase Dietary Diversity? Evidence from Smallholders in Lao PDR

Priyanka Parvathi

No 261995, 57th Annual Conference, Weihenstephan, Germany, September 13-15, 2017 from German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA)

Abstract: Under-nutrition and lack of micro-nutrients continues to remain a challenge in developing countries. As the undernourished are largely smallholder farmers, it is predominantly perceived that farm diversification and mixed crop-livestock agricultural systems can help alleviate this problem. But empirical evidence in this context is limited. Hence, this work examines whether farm production diversity as well as mixed crop-livestock farming lead to dietary diversity among smallholder farmers in Laos, using a two year panel data. Results from the fixed effects regression indicate that although farm production diversity does lead to a higher dietary diversity; the effect diminishes with continued diversification. The counterfactual analysis from the endogenous switching regression shows that following mixed crop-livestock farming system reduces household dietary diversity. We further find that markets play a significant role in enhancing the dietary diversity of the specialized farmers.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15
Date: 2017-08-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-sea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:gewi17:261995

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.261995

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