Agriculture and Nutrition:
Theory and Research Questions
Will Masters & Steve Block
(Tufts University)
Symposium session on
Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (AReNA)
at the 29th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE)
Milan, Italy – August 12th, 2015
william.masters@tufts.edu – http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters
steven.block@tufts.edu – http:// fletcher.tufts.edu/fletcher_directory/steven-block
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Ag-nutrition theory:
What others are saying
Ag-nutrition theory in economics:
As simple as possible… but no simpler*
Nutrition uses time as well as money
(care practices as well as dietary intake)
Time allocation
(care practices vs. other activities)
Care practices
(IYCF, WASH,
CMAM, etc.)
Consumption
Food acquisition
(home production vs. market transactions)
Nutritious
foods
(kg/yr)
Consumption
Production
In self-sufficiency,
production =consumption
Production
With markets and public services,
decisions are separable
Qty. of labor time (hrs/yr)
Qty. of other goods (various units)
* Occam’s razor, as attributed to Albert Einstein
Ag-nutrition theory: who cares?
food
agriculture
nutrition
4
Ag-nutrition theory: what matters?
obesity
malnutrition
5
ICAE 2015 in Milan:
What’s on now
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ICAE 2015 in Milan:
What’s on now
Word roots in ICAE paper titles that appear >5 times
impact
food
evidence
market
effect
policy
agricultural
price
farm
trade
security
case
rural
land
farmer
household
model
china
26
24
20
17
16
14
14
12
12
12
11
10
10
9
9
9
8
8
quality
develop
assess
biofuel
change
analysis
sector
economic
approach
demand
program
european
production
invest
productivity
africa
efficiency
8
8
8
7
7
7
7
7
7
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
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ICAE 2015 in Milan:
What’s on now
Word roots in ICAE paper titles that appear >5 times
impact
food
evidence
market
effect
policy
agricultural
price
farm
trade
security
case
rural
land
farmer
household
model
china
26
24
20
17
16
14
14
12
12
12
11
10
10
9
9
9
8
8
quality
develop
assess
biofuel
change
analysis
sector
economic
approach
demand
program
european
production
invest
productivity
africa
efficiency
8
8
8
7
7
7
7
7
7
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
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ICAE 2018 in Vancouver:
What’s ahead?
-- choose up to 5 words that you think
are most likely to be in your paper titles
-- please, only the words that distinguish
a particular question, theory or method
-- we’ll be back at the end of this session
to discuss your favorite words!
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…45 mins later: results
Likely ag-nutrition topics for ICAE in Vancouver, Aug. 2019
measurement
africa
spatial
institutional governance health
joint
lobbyists
sex-disaggregated
food systems (2)
agriculture-nutrition
links
intrahousehold (2)
impact (2)
diets (2)
women
impact evaluation
taxation
diet diversity
gender
information update
activity
survey methods
climate change
uncertainty
greenhouse gasses incentives (2)
height-for-age
policy
causation
poverty
markets (3)
seasonal
child
cge model
assets
market access
seasonality (2)
ageing
experiment
deprivation
market integration
consumer
lifecycle analysis
infrastructure
demand
off-farm employment
food
employment
food prices (2)
structural transform. (2)
heterogeneity
microsimulation
efficiency
regressive effects
productivity (2)
public child care
programs
equivalence scales structural change
sanitation
habitual choice
remoteness
supplementary feeding
roads and markets
high-frequency data innovation capacity processing
nutrition
nutrition
knowledge
timing
vitamin D
urbanization
subnational
security
R&D systems
social network
value chains
media
design and evaluation
of nutrition-sensitive
production oriented
interventions
rural
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