Child Nutrition Outcomes of Market Participation of Smallholder Farmers in Central Ethiopia

Demeke, Leykun and Haji, Jemma (2017): Child Nutrition Outcomes of Market Participation of Smallholder Farmers in Central Ethiopia. Published in: Journal of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development , Vol. 1, No. 5 (January 2017): pp. 571-578.

Abstract

One of the welfare indicators of the household is nutritional status of its members especially the children and women. Child nutritional status affected by household and village level characteristics’, and by governments policy towards smallholder farmers. The objective of this study was to identify and evaluate if there is significant difference in preschoolers' children nutritional outcomes of smallholder farmers at differing levels of market participation. The study used the 2009 ERHS data-set and 38 preschool children who were all the surveyed children in the dataset were included in the analysis. The result showed that 42% preschool children are stunted or too short for their age, 10% wasting or too thin for height, and 36.8% underweight. Moreover, the One-way-ANOVA result showed that farm households with high degree of market participation are better-off in child nutrition outcomes than those with low degree of participation. In order for commercialization of agriculture policies to have dramatic effects on improving health and reducing malnutrition, attention must be given to health, sanitation, and environmental issues as complementary components of agriculture policies and programs.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Child nutrition, Z-score, Smallholder, market participation, and One-way ANOVA
• Subjects: Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy

References

Abercrombie, K. C. (1975) Population and Rural Employment." Paper presented to the Food and Agriculture Organization Seminar on Population and Food and Agricultural Development, Rome, December 1-5.

Behrman, J.R. and A.B. Deolalikar (1988) Health and Nutrition,in Handbook of development economics. Volume 1. Handbooks in Economics, vol. 9, H.

Chenery and T.N.e. Srinivasan, Editors., Elsevier Science: Amsterdam; New York and Oxford. p. 631-711.

Benson T (2005) An assessment of the causes of malnutrition in Ethiopia A contribution to the formulation of a National Nutrition Strategy for Ethiopia International Food Policy Research Institute Washington, DC, USA

Bouis HE and Haddad LJ (1990) Effects of agricultural commercialization on land tenure, household resource allocation, and nutrition in the Philippines. Research Report 79. IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), Washington, DC, USA.

Cleave, J. (1974) African farmers: Labor use in the development of small holder agriculture. New York: Praeger Publishers.

CSA of Ethiopia (2003/4 - 2010/11) Annual Agricultural Sample Survey Reports

EEA (2006) Report on the Ethiopia economy, Volume IV. Transformation of the Ethiopian Agriculture: potentials, constraints and suggested interventionmeasures. Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (2011)

Dewey KG. (1981). Nutritional consequences of the transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture in Tabasco, Mexico. Human Ecology 9:151–187.

Gebremedhin B, Jaleta M, and Hoekstra D. (2009) Smallholder commercialization: Processes, determinants and impact. Discussion Paper No. 18. Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers Project, ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nai obi, Kenya. 55 pp

Gabremadhin B, Dawit A and Dejene S (2007) From farmer to Market: Smallholder Commercialization of food crops in Ethiopia.

Immink MDC and Alarcon JA. (1993) Household income, food availability, and commercial crop production by smallholder farmers in the western highlands of Guatemala. Economic Development and Cultural Change 41(2)

Kennedy E. (2001) Health and Nutrition Effects of Commercialization of Agriculture in SSA

Kennedy E. 1994a. Health and nutrition effects of commercialization of agriculture. In: von Braun J and Kennedy E (eds), Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition.Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. pp. 79–99.

Kennedy E. 1994b. Effects of sugarcane production in Southern Kenya on income and nutrition. In: von Braun J and Kennedy E (eds), Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. pp. 252–263.

Kennedy E and Cogill B. (1987) Income and nutritional effects of the commercialization of agriculture in southwestern Kenya. Research Report No. 63. IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), Washington, DC, USA.

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) GTP Volume I: Main Text (2010)

Moore, David S.; McCabe, George P. (2003) Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4th ed.). W H Freeman & Co.. p. 764.

Randolph TF. (1992) The impact of agricultural commercialization on child nutrition. A case study of smallholder households in Malawi. PhD dissertation. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.Michigan, USA

Ruthenberg, H. (1980) Farming Systems in the Tropics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. World Bank, 2005 and 2007 Agriculture for development: Overview. World Development Report, 2008 Washington. DC, USA.

Von Braun J. (1995) Agricultural commercialization: Impacts on income and nutrition and implications for policy. Food Policy 20(3):87–202.

Von Braun, J., Bouis, H. and Kennedy, E., (1994). Conceptual Framework, In: Agricultural commercialization, Economic Development and Nutrition, Chapter 2, Von Braun and Kennedy (eds), The Johns Hopkins University Press, London.