Browsing by Subject "food security"
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Item An Analysis of Coffee Production, Food Security, and Child Nutrition in Ethiopia(2021-05) McNamara, BrianArguably one of the most enduring legacies of COVID-19 will be the pandemic’s impact on global nutrition and food security. A recent report estimated that an additional 9.3 million children will become wasted, 2.6 million will become stunted, and 168,000 will die by 2022 as a result of the COVID19 pandemic and associated economic shock (Carducci et al., 2021). These statistics underscore a global problem that preceded the events of 2020. Malnutrition had been increasing gradually around the world for years so that 690 million people were already undernourished by 2019 (Pretorius et al., 2019) (Carducci et al., 2021). This trend has major implications for global poverty and well-being. Malnourished individuals have lower energy levels and are more likely to become sick. This can impede economic activity while also increasing healthcare costs for families (Schaible & Kaufmann, 2007) (Vorster, 2010). Furthermore, these effects can also lead to mental health issues and social isolation (Pretorius et al.,2019) (Huang et al., 2013). Malnutrition has even greater consequences for young children who may suffer impediments to their physical and mental development, which limit their future earning potential and shorten their life span (Martinez et al., 2018).Item Essays in Applied and Theoretical Microeconomics(2017-04) Kitsuki, AkinoriThis dissertation consists of three essays that contribute to both applied and theoretical microeconomics. The first two essays provide a theoretical framework, empirical evidence, and an empirical strategy for a better understanding of the seasonality of food insecurity in developing countries, with a special focus on seasonal price changes of staple foods. More specifically, the first essay constructs a theoretical model to analyze how seasonal price changes of a staple food affect farmers' seasonal consumption in developing countries, where storage of the staple food can be used to smooth consumption. Crucially, sharp increases in the price of the staple food just before harvest can be viewed as a high return to savings, and this has important implications for interpreting the consumption and savings behavior of poor rural households. Then, the second essay addresses whether and how farmers smooth their consumption within a crop year, using three years of weekly household panel data from rural Zambia. Given seasonal price changes of the staple food, maize, some farmers buy it when prices are low and store it for consumption during the hunger season, while others run out of the staple food before the next harvest, and so buy it when prices are high. Results indicate that the former group successfully smooths its consumption, while the latter group reduces consumption during the hunger season in response to a negative harvest at the end of the previous crop year, and the effect of these negative harvest shocks produces an inverse U consumption pattern during the crop year, especially for farmers with few assets. These farmers reduce their consumption of non-staple foods and thus reduce their food diversity to maintain consumption of the staple food in the hunger season in spite of its price hike in that season. The third essay proposes an empirical strategy (the network approach) to analyze complex interactions among several agents, and illustrates how this approach works by applying it to the analysis of soccer games. By using a longitudinal data set of all soccer players in the top German league (the Bundesliga) over the course of ten seasons (2000/01-2009/10), causal peer effects during soccer games are identified. This unique identification strategy is applicable for other studies to analyze complex interactions without simplifying the structure of those interactions.Item Factors Influencing the Food Security of Smallholder Farmers in Madagascar(2018-07) Assefa, BelayABSTRACT Understanding important factors influencing the food security status of smallholder farmers is crucial for designing interventions to enhance the food security situation of food insecure households. This study was conducted to identify major factors influencing farm household food insecurity in Madagascar. The data collected from a total of 1,178 randomly selected households from six regions of Madagascar was used in the analyses. The study found that of 1,178 households, 88.7% were food insecure. The linear probability model regression with robust standard error showed that ten variables were significant: age, informal financial loan, household’s independent farming experience, total assets per adult equivalent, the log of total household income, household size, marriage status of the household (single), shocks due to crops diseases, shocks due to weather conditions, and shocks resulting from household members’ illness. With this information, policymakers can target farmers who have experience in farming and education to reduce food insecurity. Keywords: food security, food insecurity, linear probability modelItem Feasibility Study: establishing halal meat processing in Central Minnesota(University of Minnesota Extension, 2023-09-18) Klieger, Michelle; Scheer, Fawn; Mamedov, Serdar; Pesch, Ryan; Hoffman, TravisItem Food Affordability, Preference, and Insecurity among Socially Disadvantaged Populations(2018-07) Tang, XuyangThe phrase “social determinants of health” refers to individuals’ socioeconomic and environmental situations that are shaped by societal distribution of wealth, power, and resources. Food access, which includes both having the options to choose healthy foods and having sufficient food so as to alleviate hunger, is a social determinant of health that disproportionally affects vulnerable populations facing health disparity. This dissertation closely follows the food-related themes of social determinants of health by grounding its general overarching topic in healthy food options and hunger. First, this dissertation assesses the effect of financial incentives and nutrition education on low-income individuals’ purchase of fruits and vegetables in a field setting. This portion of the dissertation uses information collected from participants’ scanned discount card and grocery receipts to examine whether healthy eating education (a grocery store tour and/or a cooking class) affects low-income individuals’ weekly purchase of fresh produce, given a level of a weekly voucher usable on fresh fruits and vegetables only. Second, this dissertation examines the effect of a hypothetical incentive for fruits and vegetables and personally salient nutrition education on low-education individuals’ attitudinal and intention measures to purchase fruits and vegetables. This objective uses an internet experiment to investigate lower-education individuals’ intention to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables given a message containing the following elements: a weekly voucher to purchase fruits and vegetables, a short description about MyPlate dietary guideline developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a short description that compares individuals’ self-reported fruits and vegetables consumption to MyPlate dietary recommendations. Third, this dissertation explores the relationships among physical limitations, chronic illness, and food insecurity among the elderly to better inform health policies that aim to reduce health care cost and utilization among seniors.Item Household Agriculture as a Determinant of Household Food Security and Child Undernutrition in Ethiopia(2020-07) Bakhtsiyarava, MaryiaThis work investigates the relationship between household agricultural activities, climatic conditions, household-level food security, and child undernutrition in Ethiopia. Given the rise in the number of people experiencing hunger in recent years, much attention has been directed toward identifying factors and strategies that can help protect people from hunger and undernourishment. This study explores what household agricultural activities are associated with household food security and child nutrition. The analyses rely on household survey data from the Ethiopia Living Standards Measurement Study, gridded data on rainfall, and satellite data on the state of vegetation. Specifically, the study explores transitions in household food security status and child stunting throughout 2011-2015 relative to household agricultural activities and rainfall conditions. This work also considers the role of household cropping and livestock rearing as distinct agricultural activities for household food security and child undernutrition. The results point to a dynamic and complex relationship between household agriculture, food security, and child undernutrition. Overall, household agricultural activities have a bigger impact on household food security compared to child undernutrition. The findings also reveal different associations depending on whether survey years represented a period with normal rainfall conditions or whether there was a drought at the time of at least one survey. A complicated nature of the relationship between the agricultural variables and the outcomes in this study is indicative of the limited role enhanced agricultural activities can play to improve food security and child undernutrition. Efforts aimed at improving food security and nutrition outcomes in Ethiopia and other low-income countries should also address women’s empowerment, disease prevention, and maternal education.Item Hunger Games: Analyzing Relationships between Food Insecurity and Violence(2018-03) Koren, OreWhat impact does food security have on patterns of conflict within developing states? Does increasing local food security levels exacerbate or help to quell violence in these areas? Answering these questions using both high-resolution and global data on conflict and food production, as well as a large variety of analytical techniques designed to address the different reciprocal and sequential relationships between food production and conflict, my dissertation shows that—contrary to previous expectations—conflict in the developing world is frequently driven, on average, by abundance and not by scarcity. The dissertation establishes two mechanisms to explain this relationship. The first in- volves conflict designed to secure local food resources for the group’s own consumption, and is hence termed “possessive conflict” over food security. The second relates to situations where armed groups use violence to regulate the food supply available to other groups by prevent- ing access to and destroying these resources, and is hence termed “preemptive conflict” over food security. Original archival evidence from the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya highlights the microlevel importance of controlling food resources and increasing group—and community—resilience; different armed actors might therefore gravitate into food-abundant areas, increasing the frequency of local armed conflict and incidents of violence against civilians. This archival evidence also shows that some food resources, such as maize and wheat, are much more valuable as an input of rebellion, and are thus more likely to and more frequently attract conflict locally. Finally, the role of highly nutritional food resources in engendering and perpetuating rebellions is evaluated on a global sample consisting of all rebellions. The data used in these macrolevel cross-national models builds on food types and other factors deemed especially salient in the microlevel analyses. Substantively, the effect of nutritious food resources is shown to surpass that of other benchmark explanations of conflict such as economic development and political openness. These findings suggest that food resources and their impact on rebellions should be taken seriously by academics and policymakers alike.Item Northside Food Project Evaluation(2008) Fathman, Carrie Ann; The Northside Food Project