Poor-quality diets are one of the leading causes of malnutrition and common non-communicable disease. In this study, we use nationally representative household survey data and food demand system estimations to analyze dietary change and changing consumer preferences for different foods in the context of urbanization in low- and middle-income countries. We estimate and compare income and price elasticities of total food demand and the demand for 15 food groups in rural, urban, and city areas of Bangladesh for 2010 and 2016. We then use Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition regressions to explore how much of the observed food consumption changes can be explained by changes in revealed consumer preferences vis-à-vis changes in household income and food prices. The results show that Bangladeshi diets shifted from coarse to refined rice, and consumer preferences for vegetables and pulses were relatively low, contributing to worsening dietary quality. On the other hand, the consumption of nutritious, animal-source foods including fish, poultry, and eggs increased due to high consumer preferences and declining food prices-partly thanks to governmental production support. Regarding the dietary implications of rapid urbanization, the analysis suggests that rural consumers’ diets will largely follow the trajectory of urban consumers in Bangladesh.

Four important implications for policy to promote and guide a transformation toward healthy diets for all Kenyans can be drawn from this research: First, Kenya’s diet problem — the underconsumption of nutritious foods and increasingly high consumption of calorie-rich but micronutrient-sparse foods — is primarily a poverty problem. Most Kenyans simply cannot afford a healthy diet. Accelerated poverty reduction will have important nutritional benefits. Second, there are large differences between the costs of meeting dietary guidelines for highly nutritious foods and the costs of obtaining adequate amounts of calorie-dense staple foods. These cost gaps have a strong effect on household diets because the food choices of many Kenyan households are primarily driven by a need to satisfy calorie requirements. This points to a problem of relative food prices, which interacts with the poverty problem. It is most apparent for animal-source protein foods and, to a lesser degree, for vegetables. Thus, policy interventions and technological innovations that address this relative food price problem are needed to narrow the consumption gaps for nutritious food groups, particularly animal-source foods and vegetables. Third, the food preferences of Kenyans show that the poor-quality diets consumed by many households are not solely due to insufficient purchasing power and high prices for nutritious foods. This is most obvious for plant-based protein foods — pulses and nuts — which have low prices per calorie, but which few households consume in sufficient amounts to meet the recommended healthy intake. This weak consumer preference for such foods suggests a lack of knowledge of their nutritional value and their importance for healthy diets. Nutrition education may aid in changing consumer behavior to increase the consumption of pulses and nuts, as well as other nutritious foods that are now underconsumed relative to the healthy reference diet. Kenyans can consume more healthy diets with their current incomes. While healthy diets are costly for many Kenyan households, changes can be made in the current typical diet to achieve better and more balanced nutrient intake at the same cost. Finally, policies aimed at promoting food systems transformation in Kenya should factor in the dietary needs of Kenyans. As agriculture is the dominant sector in Kenya’s food systems, a balance must be found between traditional objectives including productivity growth, export stimulation, and farmer support, on the one hand, and the new responsibility of improving the availability of nutrient-dense foods for better nutrition and health for all Kenyans, on the other.

One of the greatest global challenges today is ensuring widespread availability and equitable access to affordable, nutritious foods produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. A rich literature exists around the definition of a healthy diet and the drivers of dietary change. We contribute to this literature by proposing a new quantifiable diet deprivation measure estimated from standard household consumption and expenditure surveys. The Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index measures the incidence, breadth, and depth of diet deprivation across multiple, essential food groups in a single indicator. Although useful as a standalone measure, we show how ReDD can be integrated into an economywide model to examine changes in household diet quality under different simulation scenarios. Using Nigeria as case study, hypothetical agricultural productivity growth scenarios reveal that dairy, pulses, fruit, and red meat value chains have the greatest potential to reduce overall diet deprivation in Nigeria per unit of GDP growth generated, while productivity growth in more widely consumed crops such as cereals and root crops do little to improve diet quality. These findings have implications for the prioritization of agricultural development initiatives aimed at improving the quality of diets. More generally, the integration of a diet quality indicator in an economywide model allows for a deeper understanding of the drivers of dietary change.

Food system transformation strategies rely on consumer demand response for achieving sustainable healthy diets, but food consumption patterns and consumer preferences are often not well understood in many countries of the global South. This brief examines consumer demand in Bangladesh, a country in the take-off stage of agrifood system transformation, that has experienced improvements in diet quality but also an increasing incidence of overweight, with faster increases in rural than urban areas. The authors estimate responses in consumer demand to changes in incomes and changes in food prices, finding that rural consumer demand is driven by strong preferences for animal-source foods, while the demand for sugar and highly processed foods increases faster than total food demand when income rises. They conclude that agricultural value chain development can be an important policy instrument for improving household diet quality but can also lead to undesirable dietary change if food consumption incentives conflict with nutritional needs.

This study addresses the policy-relevant question of how, in the face of major economic shocks, social protection interventions can more effectively mitigate undernutrition. In particular, it considers the scope of scaled-up fortification of staples to avert the “hidden hunger” of micronutrient deficiencies. As a re-cent and still relevant example, it focuses on the kinds of economic shocks brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic which, especially during the first lockdowns of April 2020, resulted in severe job and income losses for the poor and thus reduction and changes in spending, with urban and rural non-farm households typically affected more severely than farm households. However, the findings of this study are relevant for other economic shocks that severely reduce household’s disposable income. In this study, we examine the effects of stylized economic shocks on household incomes in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Indonesia, with a focus on the difference between recommended and actual consumption of particular foods and nutrients. To this end, we use a novel combination of three integrated models to examine impacts and experiment with different types of social protection interventions. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, these are stylized models of the COVID-19 shock and government lock-downs; in Myanmar, however, we model the economic instability that took place after the February 2021 military takeover, which – in conjunction with COVID-19 impacts – resulted in an estimated 18 percent contraction in GDP (World Bank 2022).

Fish play a major role in the Bangladesh food system. Fish production, processing and marketing are major source of incomes for many households, and fish consumption accounts for a significant share of protein consumption in the Bangladeshi diet. Moreover, fish production and consumption are growting rapidly, with the aquaculture subsector as a major driver of change of both supply and demand In this paper, we present estimates of demand elasticities for four categories of fish (aquaculture, inland capture, mixed production, and marine) using a modified Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System. These demand estimates are then used in projections of future supply and demand for these different types of fish under different productivity growth assumptions. Our results show that, at current rates of productivity increase, growth in fish production will outpace increases in demand from population and income growth, resulting a decline in real prices over time. A more rapid increase in productivity would lead to even larger supply increases and corresponding price declines. These effects are most keenly felt by the poorest households who see significant increases in fish consumption. Fish production from aquaculture is likely to have higher rates of productivity growth than the more extensive inland capture and marine systems, leading to a long term shift increase in the share of aquaculture production and consumption.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe income losses, but little is known about its impacts on diets and nutritional adequacy, or the effectiveness of social protection interventions in mitigating dietary and nutritional impacts. We first assess the likely impacts of COVID-19 shocks in Bangladesh and Myanmar on poverty and food and nutrient consumption gaps. We then analyze the estimated mitigating effects of five hypothetical social protection interventions of a typical monetary value: (1) cash transfers; (2) in-kind transfers of common rice; (3) in-kind transfers of fortified rice enriched with multiple essential micronutrients; (4) vouchers for a diversified basket of rice and non-staple foods; and (5) food vouchers with fortified rice instead of common rice. The simulation results suggest modest effectiveness of the cash transfers for mitigating poverty increases and little effectiveness of all five transfers for preventing increasing food and nutrient consumption gaps among the poorest 40%. Rice fortification is, however, effective at closing key micronutrient consumption gaps and could be a suitable policy instrument for averting ‘hidden hunger’ during economic crises.

Women’s empowerment is of paramount importance for multiple development goals. However, it is much easier to discuss the importance of empowerment than it is to define the methods and tools needed to measure it. This requires research focused on the conceptual understanding of how we should measure women’s empowerment, in a variety of facets, and the creation of tools and methods for doing so.

Suboptimal diets are a major risk factor for avoidable death and disease in low- and middle-income countries. Evidence shows that some foods or food components (e.g., processed red meat, saturated fat, salt, sugar) significantly elevate the risk of noncommunicable diseases and mortality, while others protect health (e.g., vegetables, fruits, pulses, nuts/seeds, fish, whole grains—referred to in this document as “protective foods”). We used household surveys to compare dietary patterns in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet and to quantify and explain consumption gaps for nutritious foods. Compared to the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet, consumption gaps for pulses and nuts/seeds, vegetables, and fruits are large for both poor and rich consumers in rural and urban areas in the four countries studied, while consumption gaps for meat, fish, and eggs and dairy foods are much larger for lower income groups. Food expenditures of most households in these four countries are far too low to allow consumption of the healthy reference diet; animal-source foods and vegetables are the largest cost components of food expenditures, although quantities consumed of both food groups are much lower than the EAT-Lancet healthy reference diet. Income elasticities of demand for pulses and nuts/seeds and vegetables are often low or moderate, suggesting weak consumer preference for these foods, while income elasticities for fruits and animal-source foods are relatively high. Income growth alone will not solve dietary problems in East Africa; in addition to supply-side interventions to improve affordability, special interventions are required to increase consumer demand for underappreciated protective (nutritious) foods such as pulses and nuts/seeds and vegetables.

Agriculture holds special significance in Malawi, because most Malawian households depend primarily on this sector for income and food security. Therefore, legislation surrounding the agricultural sector, and the foundation it lays for the sector’s governance, are fundamental to the development prospects of the country. At their best, agricultural laws encourage farmers, traders (both domestic and international), and processors of agricultural commodities to fully engage and further invest in the agricultural sector. At their worst, they undermine confidence to do so