Agroecology and nutritional health: A comparison of agroecological farmers and their neighbors in the Ecuadorian highlands

Ana Deaconu, Peter R. Berti, Donald C. Cole, Geneviève Mercille and Malek Batal

Food Policy, 2021, vol. 101, issue C

Abstract: Agroecology has received much attention as a sustainable production strategy that may leverage agriculture-nutrition linkages to positively impact farmer nutritional health, but its potential has not been thoroughly established through empirical assessment. This mixed methods study uses survey data from Ecuador to assess how farmers' participation in agroecological associations may impact their diets. Our results suggest that agroecological farmers outperform reference farming neighbors on both nutrient adequacy (i.e. meeting key nutrient needs) and dietary moderation (i.e. avoiding dangerous excesses). Stronger nutrient adequacy is likely related to agroecological farmers' higher production diversity as well as the social and human capital developed within their networks, while stronger dietary moderation is likely related to their greater consumption of foods obtained through own-production and the social economy (e.g. barter). Dietary differences between agroecological and reference farmers occur despite similar incomes and other socioeconomic characteristics, and in fact, agroecological farmers achieve healthier diets while spending less money to purchase foods. Agroecology-based famers' networks may thus hold promise for integrating nutritional health priorities into sustainable food systems.

Keywords: Agroecology; Nutrition; Sustainable farming; Ecuador; Alternative food networks; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919221000129
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jfpoli:v:101:y:2021:i:c:s0306919221000129

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102034

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().