Sustainability Standards,Gender, and Nutrition among Smallholder Farmers in Uganda

Sustainability standards are gaining in importance in global markets for high-value foods. While previous research has shown that participating farmers in developing countries may benefit through income gains, nutrition impacts have hardly been analysed. We use survey data from smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda – certified under Fairtrade, Organic, and UTZ – to analyse impacts on food security and dietary quality. Estimates of instrumental variable models and simultaneous equation systems show that certification increases calorie and micronutrient consumption, mainly through higher incomes and improved gender equity. In certified households, women have greater control of coffee production and monetary revenues from sales.     

Where does your coffee dollar go?: The division of income and surplus along the coffee commodity chain

This article analyzes the division of the total income and surplus generated along the coffee commodity chain during the period 1971–1995. Until the late 1980s, coffee growers and producing states retained over a third of the total income and about half of the total surplus that was available. This was due in part to the collective actions of coffee-producing states, which led to the imposition of a regulatory regime involving export quotas, creating rents for the producing countries. By the late 1980s, coffee TNCs had consolidated their control over core markets, and began to use their market power to increase their shares of both income and surplus. This shift was greatly accelerated by the breakdown of the export quota regime in 1989. The article concludes that these results necessitate a reformulation of commodity chain analysis. John M. Talbot received his doctorate in sociology from UC, Berkeley, this year. His dissertation is titled “Grounds for Agreement: The Political Economy of the Coffee Commodity Chain.” This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Washington, D.C., August 19–23, 1995. Portions of this analysis were also presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, San Francisco, April 6–8, 1995.     

Can agricultural intensification help attain Sustainable Development Goals? Evidence from Africa and Asia

Market-oriented agricultural intensification is a major development strategy, yet its alignment with sustainable development goals (SDGs) is unclear. We apply indicators for SDG 2 (eradicate hunger) regarding income, food production, food security and land tenure to recent intensifications in Rwanda and Laos to reveal their disaggregated impacts. We find while market-oriented intensification may generate poverty reduction, it also exacerbated marginalisation and poverty through various forms of land tenure insecurity. Ethnicity and gender were influential factors in Rwanda, and post-conflict resettlement policies in Laos. We discuss implications for development practice and selection of suitable indicators to reflect the ambition of the SDGs.     

Rural income and poverty in a time of radical change in Malawi

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. There is widespread, though not universal, agreement about the shape of poverty in the country and the policy challenge this sets. Agriculture continues to be the most obvious means to stimulate broad-based rural growth and to provide levels of food security and income needed for the majority rural population. A longitudinal study over a decade during which radical policy and political changes occurred provides the data and basis for discussing the appropriate policy directions for reducing poverty.     

Food-security governance in India and Ethiopia: a comparative analysis

Despite recently legislating the right of all citizens to food security, India continues to suffer high food-insecurity rates. With respect to several measures, food insecurity in India appears to be actually higher than in Ethiopia, a country with only one-fourth of India’s average per-capita income. This article examines comparatively the two countries’ food-security challenges and governance mechanisms and identifies several relevant policy areas for mutual learning – dietary diversity, maternal and infant nutrition, and sanitation as well as food production and programmes’ external oversight. Beyond India and Ethiopia, these findings are pertinent also to other developing countries facing similar food-security challenges, such as Pakistan, Nigeria or Sudan.     

Food Price Transmission and Economic Development

In this paper we challenge the conventional wisdom that the world’s poorest countries are also the most vulnerable to spikes in international food prices. We derive an inverted U-shaped relationship between food price transmission and the development level of a country from a theoretical model. This prediction is subsequently tested in two sets of regressions where economic development is approximated by per capita income and where we control for a number of other potential determinants of food price transmission. The first set of regressions is based on estimated transmission elasticities and the second on actual domestic food price changes during spikes in international food prices. In both sets of regressions we find strong evidence of the existence of an inverted U-shaped relation between food price transmission and income. Thus, food prices in middle income (rather than in low income) countries respond the strongest to changes in international food prices, implying that the poor in these countries are the most exposed to spikes in food prices. We also show that the factors explaining the variation in the estimated transmission elasticities can explain the variation in domestic food price changes during spikes in international food prices equally well.     

Analysis of food expenditure patterns of industrial workers and their families in a developing country

This paper employs data from a single socio‐economic group within the Indian population to throw some light on three related topics—the impact of urbanization on the demand for food, the nature of the income‐elasticity of expenditure on food for this group, and the importance of particular socio‐economic variables as determinants of the demand for food.

The income‐elasticity of demand for food has become liable to maltreatment in the process of development planning; all too often an estimate of this parameter is employed unquestioningly to evaluate the food requirements of developing countries, although it is well known that as incomes rise the income‐elasticity of demand for food falls. The following pages show that, like other characteristics of a developing system, the income‐elasticity of the demand for food is far from being a ‘fixed’ parameter. Firstly, as development proceeds, it is subject to change in a particular manner and direction. Secondly, the particular value of the income‐elasticity is subject to considerable variation within the country at a point in time. Thirdly, other variables than income exert significant pressure on behaviour, as evidenced by food expenditure patterns.     

Walk the Talk: Private Sustainability Standards in the Ugandan Coffee Sector

We investigate the welfare and productivity implications of private sustainability standards in the coffee sector in Uganda. We use cross-sectional household survey data and an instrumental variable method with instruments that pass weak identification and over-identification restrictions. We find that triple Utz-Rainforest Alliance-4C certification increases income, and land and labour productivity, and reduces poverty. Double Fairtrade-Organic certification is found to be associated with higher producer prices but results in lower land and labour productivity, and thereby fails to increase producer income and contribute to poverty reduction. We conclude that private sustainability standards do not always live up the expectations they create towards consumers.     

A Two-Step Econometric Estimation of Covariates of Side Selling: The Case of Coffee Cooperatives in Southwest Ethiopia

Despite their apparent economic benefit to smallholder farmers, cooperatives are vulnerable to the problem of side selling. Using cross-sectional household data and Cragg’s regression model, we identified the determinants of side selling by coffee cooperative farmers in southwest Ethiopia. The bootstrapping technique was applied to extract average partial effects from the model coefficients. Certified, elder and educated farmers who have off-farm income and trust in the cooperative leadership have been found to side-sell significantly less. Nonetheless, cooperative group size and late payment favoured more side selling. Based on these findings, possible interventions are highlighted for improving cooperative members’ commitment and the performance of coffee cooperatives in the region.     

What can security do for food? Lessons from Brazil

What are the analytical benefits of using the security vocabulary when addressing issues of human well-being? And to what extent can a security framing of these issues be useful in the normative and political sense – that is, when making judgements about existing policies and when formulating and implementing alternative ones? This article uses the case of food security to engage with these questions. It argues for a shift away from conceptual fine-tuning of what food security should mean and towards an appreciation of how security functions as a political modality. Whilst acknowledging that this modality can work to encourage international conflict, enable governmental control and empower global capitalism, the idea that security has an inherent logic which denies progressive politics is refuted. Drawing on the idea of emancipation in critical security studies, and applying it to empirical examples from contemporary Brazil, it is shown how food security can help expedite action to address harm and vulnerability, reinforce the public sphere and widen the scope of social concern.     

Achieving zero hunger: implementing a human rights approach to food security in Ethiopia

A human rights approach to food security seeks to empower vulnerable groups to claim their rights. It also reinforces a government’s obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food. Furthermore, it encourages the integration of the right to food into the design and implementation of food security policies. This article examines the human rights approach to food security, with specific reference to Ethiopia. It assesses the historical causes of Ethiopia’s food insecurity, and examines the legislative and policy measures that the country has adopted over the last three decades in order to achieve food security. Food insecurity in the country is largely explained by the absence of government accountability. In 1973 and 1984, the hunger caused by drought was transitioned to famine not because of overall unavailability of food in the country, but because the government failed to provide food aid to the starved people and concealed the occurrence of famines from the international donors. Despite designing some food security policies over the last three decades, the country has not yet adopted sufficient legislative and judicial measures to enforce the right to food. This article argues that Ethiopia should introduce a framework law on the right to food to end hunger in the context of achieving national food security.     

Land Tenure Systems and Their Impacts on Agricultural Investments and Productivity in Uganda

This article provides an empirical analysis of the impact of different tenure systems (mailo, customary, and public land) on agricultural investment and productivity in central Uganda. A major hypothesis tested is that land investments and practices may have both economic and tenure security implications. The results indicate that coffee planting is used by farmers to enhance tenure security, while fallowing is practised to a greater extent by farmers on more secure holdings. This supports the notion that farmers consider tenure implications when making investments and that different tenure systems do not inhibit the promotion of tree-planting investment. Tenure had no impact on the productivity of crop farming.     

Enhancing food access in Africa: The Botswana experience

A combination of drought and misguided economic policies have resulted in decreased food security and frequent famines in many African countries in recent years. Botswana is a rare exception that has survived its worst drought without a single death from hunger. It has adopted a National Food Strategy that has both long term and short term policy dimensions. The long term goal is to increase food security through improved agricultural production and diversified rural economy. In the short term, the goal is to provide food security to the most vulnerable segment of its population. The two components of the food access program are human supplementary feeding and cash for work. The article examines Botswana’s experience in enhancing food security, based on an exploratory case study of the public employment program (cash for work) in the South East District of the Republic of Botswana. Sisay Asefa is associate professor of economics at Western Michigan State University. His current research is in country development studies, African (economic) studies, and rural/agricultural development studies. He is the author of “The Role of the Government of Botswana in Increasing Rural and Urban Access to Food” inSouthern Africa: Food Security Policy Options, edited by M. Rukuni and R. H. Bernesten, 1989 and editor ofWorld Food and Agriculture: Economic Issues and Problems (W. E. Upjohn Institute, 1988).     

Exchange rates in nineteenth‐century Brazil: An econometric model

This paper develops a model for the exchange rate in Brazil during the second half of the nineteenth century. The exchange rate discussion has a bearing in the sources of industrialization in Brazil. Two explanations stem from a primary export base. Whereas the ‘adverse shock argument’ links industrialization to unfavorable conditions in the external sector and exchange devaluations, the alternative approach views industrialization from the standpoint of the growth of income brought by the rise in exports. Those mechanisms are discussed. Also considered are the effects of monetary policy and the behavior of wages. The evidence shows that purchasing power parity is not enough to explain the exchange rate behavior, which clearly responded to coffee export revenues.     

Rice Land Designation Policy in Vietnam and the Implications of Policy Reform for Food Security and Economic Welfare

With the aim of promoting national food security, the Vietnamese government enforces the designation of around 35 per cent of agricultural land strictly for paddy rice cultivation. We investigate the economic effects of adjusting this policy, using an economy-wide model of Vietnam with detailed modelling of region-specific land use, agricultural activity, poverty and food security measures. Our results show that the removal of the rice land designation policy increases real private consumption by an average of 0.35 per cent per annum over 2011–2030, while also reducing poverty, improving food security and contributing to more nutritionally balanced diets among Vietnamese households.     

Rising Food Prices and Coping Strategies: Household-level Evidence from Afghanistan

This article investigates the impact of rising wheat prices on household food security in Afghanistan. Exploiting a unique nationally-representative household survey, we find evidence of large declines in the real value of per capita food consumption. Smaller price elasticities with respect to calories than with respect to food consumption suggest that households trade off quality for quantity as they move away from nutrient-rich foods such as meat and vegetables toward staple foods. Our work improves upon country-level simulation studies by providing estimates of actual household food security during a price shock in one of the world's poorest, most food-insecure countries.     

Food security politics and the Millennium Development Goals

This article reviews proposals regarding the recent food crisis in the context of a broader, threshold debate on the future of agriculture and food security. While the MDGs have focused on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the food crisis pushed the hungry over the one billion mark. There is thus a renewed focus on agricultural development, which pivots on the salience of industrial agriculture (as a supply source) in addressing food security. The World Bank's new 'agriculture for development' initiative seeks to improve small-farmer productivity with new inputs, and their incorporation into global markets via value-chains originating in industrial agriculture. An alternative claim, originating in 'food sovereignty' politics, demanding small-farmer rights to develop bio-regionally specific agro-ecological methods and provision for local, rather than global, markets, resonates in the IAASTD report, which implies agribusiness as usual 'is no longer an option'. The basic divide is over whether agriculture is a servant of economic growth, or should be developed as a foundational source of social and ecological sustainability. We review and compare these different paradigmatic approaches to food security, and their political and ecological implications.     

The Limits of Instrumentalism: Informal Work and Gendered Cycles of Food Insecurity in Mozambique

The instrumentalist literature suggests that women can help achieve household food security if they have access to productive resources but do not become overburdened as a result. This paper seeks to assess the relevance of this literature by exploring the gendered cycles of food insecurity in the context of women’s informal labour in northern Mozambique. It considers the relation between women and food security as embedded in the broader socio-economic setting, and finds that the interaction of different forms of deprivation, such as lack of secure employment and conflicting labour demands, generates food insecurity.     

The Southern African customs union,cereal price policy in South Africa,and food security in Botswana

It is elaborated in this article that external factors may affect food security in developing countries even if these countries are not exposed to price instability in world food markets. This is the case in the Southern African Customs Union where the agricultural price policy in South Africa affects food security in Botswana, Lesotho and Swasiland. It is analysed quantitatively how cereal price policy in South Africa influenced the cereal import sector of Botswana in the period 1969–84. Cereal import prices increased due to Botswana's membership of the customs union, and cereal imports declined. The price increase was accompanied by a price‐stabilising impact.     

Intellectual Property and Food Security in Least Developed Countries

This paper analyses the impact of intellectual property laws on food security in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), taking the Pacific Islands countries as an example. It argues that ip laws are increasingly impacting upon food security, but are not being adequately taken into account in national policy development. Consequently, national ip regimes are developing in ways that undermine, rather than promote, food security. The paper argues that the particular context of LDCs, including a lack of technological development and reliance upon traditional agricultural systems, requires an approach to intellectual property that is substantially different from the ‘one size fits all’ approach mandated by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.