Agricultural Commercialisation and Nutrition in Smallholder Farm Households

Sylvester Ochieng Ogutu, Theda Gödecke and Matin Qaim

Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2020, vol. 71, issue 2, 534-555

Abstract: Commercialisation of smallholder agriculture is important for rural economic growth. While previous studies have analysed effects of commercialisation on productivity and income, implications for farm household nutrition have received much less attention. We evaluate the effects of commercialisation on household food security and dietary quality with a special focus on calorie and micronutrient consumption. We also examine transmission channels by looking at the role of income, gender, and possible substitution effects between the consumption of own‐produced and purchased foods. The analysis uses survey data from farm households in Kenya and a control function approach. Generalised propensity scores are employed to estimate continuous treatment effects. Commercialisation significantly improves food security and dietary quality in terms of calorie, zinc and iron consumption. For vitamin A, effects are insignificant. Commercialisation contributes to higher incomes and increased nutrients from purchased foods, but it does not reduce the consumption of nutrients from own‐produced foods. Enhancing market access is important not only for rural economic growth, but also for making smallholder agriculture more nutrition‐sensitive.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12359

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jageco:v:71:y:2020:i:2:p:534-555

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0021-857X

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by David Harvey

More articles in Journal of Agricultural Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().