Adoption of hybrid maize in Zambia: effects on gender roles, food consumption, and nutrition

In this report, Shubh K. Kumar examines the reasons for low productivity of maize, the principal crop in Eastern Province, Zambia, compared with its potential, and suggests steps for increasing future productivity. The report also looks at the effects of adoption of hybrid maize on household consumption, nutrition, health, income, and labor and on how these may be redistributed within the household as a result of adoption. In particular, it focuses on changes in women's roles in crop management and resulting changes in allocation of time and money. The report is based on a collaborative study in Eastern Province conducted in 1986 by the International Food Policy Research Institute with the University of Zambia's Rural Development Studies Bureau and the Zambian National Food and Nutrition Commission to examine the growth and equity effects of technological change.Maize industry Zambia Eastern Province., Corn industry Zambia Eastern Province., Food consumption Zambia Eastern Province., Nutrition Zambia Eastern Province., Women agricultural laborers Zambia Eastern Province., Sex role in the work environment Zambia Eastern Province., Gender, Health and nutrition, Agricultural technology, Agricultural growth,

Managing interactions between household food security and preschooler health:

Food security does not assure good nutrition. The nutritional status of an individual is influenced not only by food but also by nonfood factors, such as clean water, sanitation, and health care. The effect of all of these factors must be considered in efforts to rid the world of malnutrition. Food security will result in good nutrition only if nonfood factors are effectively dealt with. In this paper, Lawrence Haddad, Saroj Bhattarai, Maarten Immink, and Shubh Kumar show how malnutrition among preschool children is determined by a complex interaction of illness and lack of food. The authors look at three countries —Ethiopia, Pakistan, and the Philippines — to study how food availability and diarrhea interact and what this interaction means for preschooler malnutrition. Their results show that the links between food consumption, diarrhea, and malnutrition are stronger than most economic studies have assumed. When diarrhea is prevalent, the effects of food shortages on child malnutrition are worse, and when food is scarce, the effects of diarrhea on child malnutrition are worse.Food security Ethiopia., Malnutrition in children Ethiopia., Food security Pakistan., Malnutrition in children Pakistan., Food security Philippines., Malnutrition in children Philippines.,

Consequences of deforestation for women's time allocation, agricultural production, and nutrition in hill areas of Nepal:

Women agricultural laborers Nepal., Agricultural productivity Nepal., Deforestation Economic aspects Nepal., Women agricultural laborers Time management Nepal., Women fuelwood gatherers Time management Nepal., Food supply Nepal., Natural resource management, Gender, Health and nutrition,

effects on gender roles, food consumption, and nutrition

In this report, Shubh K. Kumar examines the reasons for low productivity of maize, the principal crop in Eastern Province, Zambia, compared with its potential, and suggests steps for increasing future productivity. The report also looks at the effects of adoption of hybrid maize on household consumption, nutrition, health, income, and labor and on how these may be redistributed within the household as a result of adoption. In particular, it focuses on changes in women's roles in crop management and resulting changes in allocation of time and money. The report is based on a collaborative study in Eastern Province conducted in 1986 by the International Food Policy Research Institute with the University of Zambia's Rural Development Studies Bureau and the Zambian National Food and Nutrition Commission to examine the growth and equity effects of technological change.PRIFPRI

Women's Role and Agricultural Technology

Women have played a significant role in traditional agricultural production technology in African societies. Because women's contribution was so central in both the agricultural division of labor and its reproduction, traditional structures of resource allocation have provided them access to the basic factors of production in agriculture. Despite the fact that they remained socially subordinate to men, they participated in resource control, decisionmaking, and production. However in programs for improvement of agricultural technologies, women are seldom recipients of the benefits, although they no doubt are capable of using them. In the cases cited in the literature where women either could not obtain the new technology or were adversely affected by it, underlying social, cultural, and economic conditions were primarily responsible. This was usually compounded by insensitivity in program design and implementation.PRIFPRI

The economics and politics of food policies

Non-PRIFPRI

Design, income distribution, and consumption effects of maize pricing policies in Zambia

The organization of maize marketing in Zambia reflects the main objective of the system—supplying urban areas with cheap food. Maize purchased from farmers is sold only to the major milling companies, all of which are located in urban centers. The marketing subsidy, reflected in the low sale price to these millers, is in effect a subsidy to mainly urban consumers. Rural retailers are allowed an explicit markup to cover transport costs back to rural areas. However, to the extent that the price of milled maize purchased in urban areas incorporates not only an explicit transport subsidy but also storage and often milling subsidies as well, the rural consumers of the purchased meal may also be deriving some price advantage. This is of course in addition to the implicit subsidy via a somewhat lower domestic price and inflated exchange rate that has remained part of the situation during most of the past twenty years. It should be noted that this analysis represents the situation only up to the mid-1980s, prior to the recent inflationary and exchange rate changes.PRIFPRI1DG

efectos en las funciones de cada género, el consumo de alimentos y la nutrición

Non-PRIFPRI