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Understanding the links between farmer’s income and nutritional status: a panel data analysis in the semi-arid tropics of India

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/10976/
 
Title Understanding the links between farmer’s income and nutritional status: a panel data analysis in the semi-arid tropics of India
 
Creator Padmaja, R
Pramanik, S
Kasala, K
 
Subject Semi-arid tropics
Village Level Studies
Food and Nutrition
Indian Agriculture
India
Village Dynamics Studies
 
Description Despite the strong economic growth, India continues to perform
poorly on its nutritional indicators. The literature seems to
suggest that there is a disconnection between economic growth
and nutrition. The increasing understanding of nutrition and
the shifting landscape of malnutrition in India and across the
world has led to a focus on diet quality, an important ingredient
for enhancing the nutritional status of women, men, boys and
girls. There is a void in data and metrics on nutrition, especially
linking to agriculture. This lack of data and evidence has led to
little knowledge about dietary patterns, and limited understanding
of how economic growth, agriculture, trade, food industiy and
health policy may be used to improve diet quality. Drawing
extensively on micro-level data from 433 households covering
eight villages of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra,
this paper basically attempts to answer the question on whether
enhancing farmer’s income will lead to better food and nutrition
security and therefore focuses on understanding how increases
in income may have impacted on the nutrition of the members of
the household. The data was collected from 2009 to 2014 as part
of the Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia (VDSA) by the
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT). Diet quality was measured using the dietary diversity
scores calculated based on the consumption expenditure pattern.
The analysis reveals significant changes in expenditure patterns
on different food groups both temporally and spatially. Simpson
Diversity Index on food expenditure varies from 0.81 to 0.86 in all
the selected households across the three regions on an average.
The food expenditure diversity among the sample households
varies from 70 percent to 90 percent in the entire study period.
Further, using Body Mass Index (BMI) as an outcome variable
in all the study villages, obesity and overweight was showing
an increasing trend while underweight and normal nutritional
status were found to be stable. The Tobit regression analysis
revealed that income and food expenditure play a significant
role to enhance the household’s nutritional status. It can be
inferred that, though improvements are made in reducing under
nutrition, tendencies towards overweight or obesity are
increasing. The paper suggests that diversification of agriculture
towards high value commodities like fruits and vegetables can
improve the diversity in the diets of the rural population especially
for women, children and adolescents and thus bring about the
desired nutritional outcomes.
 
Publisher Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC)
 
Contributor Meenaksh, R
 
Date 2018-07
 
Type Book Section
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/10976/1/Chapter-contemporary-issues.pdf
Padmaja, R and Pramanik, S and Kasala, K (2018) Understanding the links between farmer’s income and nutritional status: a panel data analysis in the semi-arid tropics of India. In: Contemporary Issues in Indian Agriculture. Social and Economic Change Monographs (60). Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore, pp. 26-44. ISBN 8177911597