Essays on food security

My three dissertation essays explore food security questions in Ethiopia, Philippines and India. Specifically, I estimate how food security responds to (1) land degradation in Ethiopian highlands, (2) domestic marketing policies in Philippines, and (3) trade protection policies in India. In my first paper, I merge environmental maps with geographically coded farmer survey data in Ethiopian highlands to estimate the effect of land degradation on the value of agricultural production. Because land degradation may be endogenous to agricultural production choices, this analysis explicitly controls for endogeneity using bequests and type of energy used for cooking as instrumental variables. I find that land degradation reduces agricultural value by 4 percent, which is smaller than when endogeneity is not accounted for. I also generate a differential impacts map based on the estimates from the spatial weighted regression. By identifying those regions or sectors of Ethiopia most at risk of losing agricultural value from land degradation, this paper provides important information for targeting conservation measures. My second paper examines the effect of government grain procurement and distribution in the Philippines. I use a structural Vector Autoregression model to estimate impacts of policy shocks on market prices and then use the estimates simulate ‘no policy’ prices. I compare the simulated ‘no policy’ prices with actual historical prices. I find that government activities have a very small impact on rice price levels and variability. Specifically, I find that the government’s activities only impacted food prices during the small number of years when the country was self-sufficient in production. Finally, in my third paper, I examine how trade policies, specifically export bans, affected domestic rice and wheat market integration in India. I verify that Indian markets maintain segmented equilibria by testing for and finding thresholds in a Threshold Vector Error Correction Model. More specifically I find that export bans may have had have had unintended consequences of increasing domestic price differences thereby resulting in the lack of domestic market integration. Since the decisions to use these blunt instruments are taken by domestic governments worldwide, studying the domestic effect of these policies has the potential to affect the use of these policies by other countries in the future

Analyzing Market Price Transmission, Government Intervention and Weather Shocks for Rice Market in the Philippines

In the Philippines, where rice is considered the most important food crop, attempts to influence rice prices have been prevalent. The government, through National Food Authority (NFA) has sought to establish stocks and control imports to stabilize prices since its establishment in 1972 to support farm gate prices and reduce retail price of rice. But data shows divergence in retail prices and farm prices since mid 1960s. In this paper, we use vector autoregression (VAR) to analyze the movement of Philippine rice margins with government stocks and weather supply shocks to able to determine government effectiveness in actual times of market stress. Comparing VARs across regions, we are able to identify the regions in which price margins are significantly affected by government intervention measures

Analyzing Market Price Transmission, Government Intervention and Weather Shocks for Rice Market in the Philippines

In the Philippines, where rice is considered the most important food crop, attempts to influence rice prices have been prevalent. The government, through National Food Authority (NFA) has sought to establish stocks and control imports to stabilize prices since its establishment in 1972 to support farm gate prices and reduce retail price of rice. But data shows divergence in retail prices and farm prices since mid 1960s. In this paper, we use vector autoregression (VAR) to analyze the movement of Philippine rice margins with government stocks and weather supply shocks to able to determine government effectiveness in actual times of market stress. Comparing VARs across regions, we are able to identify the regions in which price margins are significantly affected by government intervention measures.Vector-auto-regression, Price-Margin, Rice, Philippines, Policy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Q11, Q13, Q18,

Associations between Food Scarcity during Pregnancy and Children’s Survival and Linear Growth in Zambia

A growing body of literature suggests that in utero exposure to hunger negatively affects children’s survival and linear growth. In this paper, we retrospectively linked data on local agricultural output and household food reserves during the in utero period to children’s health and nutritional status in the first five years of their life. We hypothesized that seasonal variations in agricultural yields and food reserves affect the quantity and diversity of food intake during pregnancy, and that pregnancies during periods with limited food reserves are associated with poorer child health outcomes. We generated a food reserve scarcity index (FRSI) based on reported food stocks at the household level reported in post-harvest surveys from 2001-2007 and estimated associations with child survival, birth size and World Health Organization (WHO) growth Z scores using multivariable regression model. We found negative and statistically significant associations between children’s weight and height Z-scores (WAZ and HAZ) and food scarcity in all trimesters with largest associations for the first and third trimesters. While we found that food scarcity in the second trimester increases children’s mortality risk, food scarcity in early gestation had protective effects on mortality. The results suggest that policies aimed at reducing vulnerability to food scarcity require targeting the vulnerable populations and proper timing of policies. Policy implications encompass two pathways: One is through nutrition such as food aid and supplements; And with the recurrence of food scarcity problem, the second more sustainable solution is through agriculture and extension such as proper food storage