Agricultural correlates of aggregate nutritional outcomes in Malawi: District-level rank analysis

cg.authorship.typesCGIAR single centreen
cg.contributor.donorIrish Aiden
cg.coverage.countryMalawi
cg.coverage.iso3166-alpha2MW
cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.regionSub-Saharan Africa
cg.coverage.regionSouthern Africa
cg.coverage.regionEastern Africa
cg.creator.identifierTodd Benson: 0000-0001-7919-778X
cg.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1177/0030727017744940en
cg.identifier.projectIFPRI - Development Strategy and Governance Division
cg.identifier.publicationRankB
cg.isijournalISI Journalen
cg.issn0030-7270en
cg.issue4en
cg.journalOutlook on Agricultureen
cg.reviewStatusPeer Reviewen
cg.volume46en
dc.contributor.authorBenson, Todden
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-21T09:06:23Zen
dc.date.available2024-06-21T09:06:23Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/146262
dc.titleAgricultural correlates of aggregate nutritional outcomes in Malawi: District-level rank analysisen
dcterms.abstractObtaining empirical evidence on the importance of agriculture in determining nutritional status is difficult, as there are few data sets that contain information on both nutrition outcomes and the agricultural livelihoods of survey respondents. Here we take advantage of the fact that the Demographic and Health Survey fielded in Malawi in 2010, which collected detailed information on nutrition outcomes, used comparable survey strata to a household consumption and expenditure survey in 2010–2011 that collected extensive information on agricultural production. While the samples for the two surveys involved different households, the results of both are representative at district level. Using a non-parametric rank correlation approach, we use the district-level results from the surveys to examine whether there are associations between five aggregate nutritional outcomes and characteristics of agricultural production in 27 districts of Malawi. The analysis is then extended to explore other non-agricultural determinants of nutritional status. Limited associations between aggregate agricultural production and aggregate nutritional outcomes were found, suggesting that the direct relationship between the two is relatively weak in Malawi. Moreover, the sign of many of the associations runs contrary to expectations: in some cases, strengthened agricultural livelihoods are negatively related to nutritional outcomes. When the analysis is extended to consider non-agricultural determinants of nutritional status, slightly stronger associations are found – aggregated measures of women’s empowerment, the availability of food and micronutrients and measures of household wealth are positively related to aggregate nutrition outcomes. Nonetheless, this analysis should be treated as exploratory. It is presented to stimulate more detailed examination of the association in Malawi between nutrition outcomes and agriculture using individual- and household-level data.en
dcterms.bibliographicCitationBenson, Todd. 2017. Agricultural correlates of aggregate nutritional outcomes in Malawi: District-level rank analysis. Outlook on Agriculture 46(4): 279-288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030727017744940en
dcterms.extentpp. 279-288en
dcterms.issued2017
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherSAGE Publicationsen
dcterms.replaceshttps://ebrary.ifpri.org/digital/collection/p15738coll5/id/6094en
dcterms.subjecthousehold surveysen
dcterms.subjectsurveysen
dcterms.subjectagricultureen
dcterms.subjectnutritionen
dcterms.typeJournal Article

Files