David L. Tschirley

Food security strategies under extremely adverse conditions: The determinants of household income and consumption in rural Mozambique

Abstract This paper uses household survey data from war-torn northern Mozambique to examine the factors associated with higher incomes and improved rural household food security. Incomes and calorie consumption were found to be low and variable in each district, and both are highly correlated with land holdings. The central role of land holdings is largely a result of serious market failure. Food market participation rates and the proportion of net buyers are lower than in other sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) research. Purchased food as a percentage of total caloric intake and off-farm income as a percentage of total income are both very low by SSA standards. In short, surveyed smallholders have adopted a strategy of marked reliance on farm-based own production to ensure their survival. It is suggested that land holdings will continue to be key determinants of household income and consumption for the foreseeable future. Broad-based rural development efforts, possibly organized around existing cotton-growing enterprises, may offer one way out of the poverty trap for smallholders.

Food aid and food markets: lessons from Mozambique

Abstract A consensus has emerged on food aid policy, acknowledging the importance of short-run relief considerations, while emphasizing that such policy must be driven by a long-run, developmental perspective. This requires explicit attention to the effects of food aid on food markets. Yet it has long been clear that short- and long-run objectives of food aid may conflict. This tension stands in high relief in Mozambique, one of the most food aid-dependent countries in the world. This paper examines the factors determining the effects of yellow maize food aid on markets for yellow maize and white maize (the staple crop) in Mozambique. The paper finds that: (a) food aid has helped fuel the growth of a competitive small scale milling industry and informal marketing system; (b) yellow and white maize are substitutes in consumption; and (c) continued availability of yellow maize food aid at prices well below import parity will depress incentives for producers and traders to invest in the white maize production and marketing system. This paper presents recommendations for reforming the monetized food aid program and coordinating it more effectively with emergency aid.

Ensuring the supply of and creating demand for a biofortified crop with a visible trait: lessons learned from the introduction of orange-fleshed sweet potato in drought-prone areas of Mozambique.

Background Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) is a promising biofortified crop for sub-Saharan Africa because it has high levels of provitamin A carotenoids, the formed vitamin A is bioavailable, and white-fleshed sweet potato is already widely grown. Objectives To examine whether farmers will adopt varieties with a distinct visible trait, young children will eat OFSP in sufficient quantities to improve vitamin A intake, OFSP can serve as an entry point for promoting a more diversified diet, and lessons can be drawn to assure sustained adoption. Methods The 2-year quasi-experimental intervention study followed households and children (n = 741; mean age, 13 months at baseline) through two agricultural cycles in drought prone-areas of Mozambique. Results OFSP is acceptable to farmers when introduced by using an integrated approach. In the second year, intervention children (n = 498) were more likely than control children (n = 243) to have consumed OFSP (54% vs. 4%), dark-green leaves (60% vs. 46%), or ripe papaya (65% vs. 42%) on 3 or more days in the previous week (p < .001 for all comparisons). Their vitamin A intakes were nearly eight times higher than those of control children (median, 426 vs. 56 μg RAE [retinol activity equivalents], p < .001). Diet diversification was limited by difficult agroecological conditions and low purchasing power. However, dietary diversity was higher among intervention than control children (32% vs. 9% consuming food from more than four groups; p < .001). Conclusions An integrated OFSP-based approach had a positive impact on the vitamin A intake of young children. A market development component and improved vine multiplication systems are recommended to assure sustained adoption.

Smallholder agriculture, wage labour and rural poverty alleviation in land-abundant areas of Africa: evidence from Mozambique

This paper challenges the conclusions of earlier writers regarding the roles of smallholder agriculture, commercial agriculture and wage labour in rural poverty alleviation in Mozambique. We review literature from across Sub-Saharan Africa and use recently collected household level data sets to place Mozambique within this literature. Results show that, as in the rest of SSA, wage labour earnings are concentrated among the best-off rural smallholders; these earnings increase income inequality rather than reducing it. Results also suggest that the same set of households, who are substantially better-off than others, has tended to gain and maintain access to the ‘high-wage’ end of the labour market over time. Key determinants of access to ‘high-wage’ labour are levels of education and previously accumulated household wealth. Income from wage labour plays a key role in lifting out of relative poverty those ‘female-headed’ households that can obtain it, yet only about one in five such households earns wage income. We stress that the rural development question in Mozambique, and elsewhere in SSA, should not be framed as an artificial choice between promoting either wage labour opportunities or commercial agriculture or smallholder agriculture. The issue is what mix of approaches is needed to develop a diversified rural economy with growing total incomes, improving food security and rapid reductions in poverty. We suggest that commercial agriculture and increased rural wage labour are important components in any such strategy, but that this strategy will fail without substantial and sustained increases in the productivity and profitability of smallholder agriculture.

Institutional Diversity and Performance in African Cotton Sectors

This article analyses the performance of cotton sectors across East, Southern, and West Africa, paying particular attention to the wide diversity of institutional arrangements that they now exhibit. It finds strong support for earlier contentions regarding trade-offs between competition and coordination, and between the roles of public and private sectors. New insights provide concrete and context-specific guidance to policy-makers and stakeholders regarding the key challenges they will face and the risks they will need to manage as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within cotton sectors.

Africa ' s unfolding diet transformation: implications for agrifood system employment

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to understand how the unfolding diet transformation in East and Southern Africa is likely to influence the evolution of employment within its agrifood system (AFS) and between that system and the rest of the economy. To briefly consider implications for education and skill acquisition. Design/methodology/approach - – The authors link changing diets to employment structure. The authors then use alternative projections of diet change over 15- and 30-year intervals to develop scenarios on changes in employment structure. Findings - – As long as incomes in ESA continue to rise at levels near those of the past decade, the transformation of their economies is likely to advance dramatically. Key features will be: sharp decline in the share of the workforce engaged in farming even as absolute numbers rise modestly, sharp increase in the share engaged in non-farm segments of the AFS, and an even sharper increase in the share engaged outside the AFS. Within the AFS, food preparation away from home is likely to grow most rapidly, followed by food manufacturing, and finally by marketing, transport, and other AFS services. Resource booms in Mozambique and (potentially) Tanzania are the main factor that may change this pattern. Research limitations/implications - – Clarifying policy implications requires renewed research given the rapid changes in Africa over the past 15 years. Originality/value - – This is the first paper to explicitly link changing diets to changing employment within the AFS.

Predicting dietary intakes with simple food recall information: a case study from rural Mozambique

Objective: Improving dietary status is an important development objective, but monitoring of progress in this area can be too costly for many low-income countries. This paper demonstrates a simple, inexpensive technique for monitoring household diets in Mozambique.Design: Secondary analysis of data from an intensive field survey on household food consumption and agricultural practices, known as the Nampula/Cabo Delgado Study (NCD).Subjects: In total, 388 households in 16 villages from a stratified random sample of rural areas in Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces in northern Mozambique.Methods: The NCD employed a quantitative 24-h food recall on two nonconsecutive days in each of the three different seasons. A dietary intake prediction model was developed with linear regression techniques based on NCD nutrient intake data and easy-to-collect variables, such as food group consumption and household size The model was used to predict the prevalence of low intakes among subsamples from the field study using only easy-to-collect variables.Results: Using empirical data for the harvest season from the original NCD study, 40% of the observations on households had low-energy intakes, whereas rates of low intake for protein, vitamin A, and iron, were 14, 94, and 39, respectively. The model developed here predicted that 42% would have low-energy intakes and that 12, 93, and 35% would have low-protein, vitamin A, and iron intakes, respectively. Similarly, close predictions were found using an aggregate index of overall diet quality.Conclusions: This work demonstrates the potential for using low-cost methods for monitoring dietary intake in Mozambique.Sponsorship: Michigan State University and the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Special issue introduction: Sub-Saharan Africa’s agri-food system in transition

Purpose - – The papers in this special issue measure the pace of change and the employment consequences of rapid ongoing transformation of Sub-Saharan Africa’s agri-food system. After quantitatively assessing the pace of change in consumer diets, a succession of papers examines the resulting change in public health, employment structure, job skill requirements and the educational challenges facing agricultural education and training (AET) institutions charged with preparing African youth with workforce skill required to succeed in the continent’s rapidly changing, rapidly growing agri-food system. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - – Changes in consumer demand and workforce skill needs emerge from a quantitative projection model using Living Standards Measurement Studies in half a dozen countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Based on surveys of employers, graduates and staff at AET institutions in a range of 14 different countries, the analyses evaluate the workforce skill needs and educational challenges for preparing Africa’s emerging youth bulge to seek productive careers on the farm and in post-farm segments of the agri-food system. Throughout, the papers contrast findings from countries at different stages in the food system transformation using a typology developed in this paper. Findings - – The concluding paper in this issue by Kabasa, Kirsten and Minde summarizes key findings emerging from this collection. Originality/value - – The contributions in this special issue report original research based on analysis of LSMS data and on interviews with agri-food system employers, agricultural education institutions and professionals in over a dozen African countries.

Confronting the silent challenge of hunger: a conference synthesis

This report is a synthesis of views presented at the Confronting the Silent Challenge of Hunger USAID Conference, June 28-29, 1994. The purposes of the conference were to provide information to assist AID in defining and articulating its development strategy related to agriculture and food security, to identify issues of consensus for incorporation into future AID strategy, and to identify critical issues of ongoing debate which need to be resolved.

Demand for food safety in emerging and developing countries: A research agenda for Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose - Food safety in emerging and developing regions is receiving increased attention from economists, researchers and policymakers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on the economics of food safety in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Of interest are studies exploring consumer demand and producer behavior regarding food safety. Particular attention is given to areas in need of additional research. The studies’ common implications for future research are discussed. Design/methodology/approach - Two English language searches were conducted in the summer of 2013 to identify relevant studies on the economics of food safety, one each in Google Scholar and Web of Science. The authors carefully reviewed the abstracts of these studies for content, and select papers were identified that capture overarching themes found in the literature. Findings are presented by region. Findings - Consumers in developing countries will become increasingly aware of food safety issues as urbanization proceeds and incomes continue to rise at robust rates. However, assuring food safety in modernizing food systems involves significant costs, and current incomes in developing SSA are far lower than in Asia. The authors find that overall consumer awareness of food safety problems in SSA is low relative to Asia. Moreover, knowledge of producer behavior and consumer demand for food safety in developing countries is very limited. Research limitations/implications - Limitations include a lack of information available on domestic food safety issues and overall knowledge of how food safety affects developing agrifood systems. Originality/value - The findings from this review contribute to a better understanding of the economics of food safety in emerging and developing regions.