Work

Nutrition demand, subsistence farming, and agricultural productivity

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: In many of the poorest countries, agriculture is unproductive and subsistence farming is widespread. I propose nutrition demand as a mechanism that drives the production decisions of subsistence farmers and contributes to low aggregate agricultural productivity. I explore this mechanism in a model of farm-operating households facing explicit caloric needs and costly domestic trade, and test the model’s predictions on Malawian household-level data. In the model and in the data, the smallest farmers focus their consumption on obtaining calories and specialize their production in unsold staple crops; medium farmers diversify their diet and subsistence production; the largest farmers commercialize their farms. I quantify the aggregate implications of this farm-level product choice using the model. It suggests that lowering trade frictions enough for farmers to even partially leave subsistence would raise the country's agricultural productivity by 42%. Half of this increase is driven by a realignment of individual farmers’ product choice.

Source: Journal of Development Economics

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103681

Author: Stepan Gordeev

Institution: Texas Christian University

Language: English

Topic: Agricultural economics and policies

Subfield: Safety Research

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Zero hunger, No poverty, Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,590