Up in Smoke? Agricultural Commercialization, Rising Food Prices and Stunting in Malawi

Wood, Benjamin ; Nelson, Carl ; Kilic, Talip ; Murray, Siobhan

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGGREGATE HOUSEHOLD INCOME;    AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS;    AGRICULTURAL GROWTH;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6650
RP-ID  :  WPS6650

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Diversification into high-value cashcrops among smallholders has been propagated as a strategyto improve welfare in rural areas. However, the extent towhich cash crop production spurs projected gains remains anunder-researched question, especially in the context ofmarket imperfections leading to non-separable production andconsumption decisions, and price shocks to staple crops thatmight be displaced on the farm by cash crops. This study isa contribution to the long-standing debate on the linksbetween commercialization and nutrition. It usesnationally-representative household survey data from Malawi,and estimates the effect of household adoption of an exportcrop, namely tobacco, on child height-for-age z-scores.Given the endogenous nature of household tobacco adoption,the analysis relies on instrumental variable regressions,and isolates the causal effect by comparing impact estimatesinformed by two unique samples of children that differ intheir exposure to an exogenous domestic staple food priceshock during the early child development window (fromconception through two years of age). The analysis findsthat household tobacco production in the year of or the yearafter child birth, combined with exposure to an exogenousdomestic staple food price shock, lowers the childheight-for-age z-score by 1.27, implying a 70-percent dropin z-score. The negative effect is, however, notstatistically significant among children who were notexposed to the same shock. The results put emphasis on thefood insecurity and malnutrition risks materializing attimes of high food prices, which might havedisproportionately adverse effects on uninsured cash crop producers.