Vivian Hoffmann

International agricultural research to reduce food risks: case studies on aflatoxins

Despite massive expansion of human and livestock populations, fuelled by agricultural innovations, nearly one billion people are hungry and 2 billion are sickened each year from the food they eat. Agricultural and food systems are intimately connected to health outcomes, but health policy and programs often stop at the clinic door. A consensus is growing that the disconnection between agriculture, health and nutrition is at least partly responsible for the disease burden associated with food and farming. Mycotoxins produced by fungi are one of the most serious food safety problems affecting staple crops (especially maize and groundnuts). Aflatoxins, the best studied of these mycotoxins, cause around 90,000 cases of liver cancer each year and are strongly associated with stunting and immune suppression in children. Mycotoxins also cause major economic disruptions through their impacts on trade and livestock production. In this paper we use the case of fungal toxins to explore how agricultural research can produce innovations, understand incentives and enable institutions to improve, simultaneously, food safety, food accessibility for poor consumers and access to markets for smallholder farmers, thus making the case for research investors to support research into agricultural approaches for enhancing food safety in value chains. We first discuss the evolution of food safety research within the CGIAR. Then we show how taking an epidemiological and economic perspective on aflatoxin research connects health and nutrition outcomes. Finally, we present three case studies illustrating the traditional strengths of CGIAR research: breeding better varieties and developing new technologies.

Targeting health subsidies through a nonprice mechanism: A randomized controlled trial in Kenya.

Delivering chlorine to those who use it In developed countries, a consumers valuation of a health product can be measured by his or her willingness to pay for it. But poorer individuals, especially those in developing countries, might want and need a product yet be unable to pay for it with money. Dupas et al. demonstrate that a nonprice voucher mechanism can be used to deliver chlorine for water treatment to people in Kenya who are too poor to pay for it, but who use it when they get it (see the Perspective by Olken). Having to redeem the vouchers screens out people who would accept the free chlorine solution but not use it. Science, this issue p. 889; see also p. 864 A voucher system allows poor people who need clean water to pay for it with time and effort. Free provision of preventive health products can markedly increase access in low-income countries. A cost concern about free provision is that some recipients may not use the product, wasting resources (overinclusion). Yet, charging a price to screen out nonusers may screen out poor people who need and would use the product (overexclusion). We report on a randomized controlled trial of a screening mechanism that combines the free provision of chlorine solution for water treatment with a small nonmonetary cost (household vouchers that need to be redeemed monthly in order). Relative to a nonvoucher free distribution program, this mechanism reduces the quantity of chlorine procured by 60 percentage points, but reduces the share of households whose stored water tests positive for chlorine residual by only one percentage point, substantially improving the trade-off between overinclusion and overexclusion.

Relief from usury : impact of a community-based microcredit program in rural India

The impact of micro-credit interventions on existing credit markets is theoretically ambiguous. Previous empirical work suggests the entry of a joint-liability lender may lead to a positive impact on the informal lending rate. This paper presents the first randomized controlled trial–based evidence on this question. Households in rural Bihar, India, were offered low-cost credit through a government-led self-help group program, the rollout of which was randomized at the panchayat level. The intervention led to a dramatic 14.5 percent decline in the use of informal credit, as households substituted to lower-cost self-help group loans. Due to the program, the average rate paid on recent loans fell from 69 to 58 percent per year overall. Rates on informal loans also declined slightly. Among landless households, informal lending rates fell from 65.5 to 63.2 percent, decreasing by 40 percent the gap in rates paid by landless versus landowning households. Two years after the initiation of the program, significant positive impacts on asset ownership among landless households were apparent. Impacts on various indicators of womens empowerment were mixed, and showed no clear direction when aggregated, nor was there any impact on consumption expenditures.