The Impact of Global Development Pathways on Food Security and Diet Quality: Results of a Global Economic Model.

This study aims to assess the impact of future global development pathways on food and nutrition security, particularly on the composition of diets considering macronutrients. For this purpose, two alternative baseline scenarios until 2030 following the narratives of shared socioeconomic pathways are simulated using a global economic model, extended to account for detailed nutrition information of different food groups taken from the FAO food balance sheets. In general, both scenarios reveal increases in energy intake for the average consumer in all regions. However, some regions remain on average below or at the recommended energy intake level, indicating that still a substantial share of the population could remain food insecure. By contrast, particularly in emerging and industrialized countries, energy intake increases substantially by increasing the consumption of meat, oils and fats, as well as sugar. As the diet in most of these countries already exceeded the recommended intake of fat and protein in 2011, the scenario results indicate further increases in overconsumption and related non-communicable diseases for the future.

Taxing highly processed foods: What could be the impacts on obesity and underweight in sub-Saharan Africa?

The consumption of highly processed food has been singled out as one of the factors responsible for the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity and its associated non-communicable diseases and costs. While obesity prevalence is still comparatively low in lower-income sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), development prospects in this region render markets especially attractive for these foods, whose consumption is already growing at higher rates than in developed countries. This might be reflected in the massive rise in obesity prevalence growth rates in SSA over the past decade, while many of these countries are simultaneously struggling with high undernutrition prevalence. Using a newly constructed cross-country panel dataset, this study econometrically investigates the effect of higher import tariffs on highly processed vis-à-vis less-processed foods with respect to their impacts on obesity and underweight prevalence in the adult population. While the analysis is global, the discussion focuses primarily on SSA. The effects of the tariff differences are found to be significant and substantial and to differ by income level of the country as well as by gender. More generally, the results show that policies affecting the consumer price differential between the two food groups are effective in influencing obesity and underweight prevalence and that these two issues cannot be treated separately.

Is Bhutan destined for 100% organic? Assessing the economy-wide effects of a large-scale conversion policy.

Organic agriculture (OA) is considered a strategy to make agriculture more sustainable. Bhutan has embraced the ambitious goal of becoming the world's first 100% organic nation. By analysing recent on-farm data in Bhutan, we found organic crop yields on average to be 24% lower than conventional yields. Based on these yield gaps, we assess the effects of the 100% organic conversion policy by employing an economy-wide computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with detailed representation of Bhutan's agricultural sector incorporating agroecological zones, crop nutrients, and field operations. Despite a low dependency on agrochemicals from the onset of this initiative, we find a considerable reduction in Bhutan's GDP, substantial welfare losses, particularly for non-agricultural households, and adverse impacts on food security. The yield gap is the main driver for a strong decline in domestic agricultural production, which is largely compensated by increased food imports, resulting in a weakening of the country's cereal self-sufficiency. Current organic by default farming practices in Bhutan are still underdeveloped and do not apply the systems approach of organic farming as defined in the IFOAM organic farming standards. This is reflected in the strong decline of nitrogen (N) availability to crops in our simulation and bears potential for increased yields in OA. Improvement of soil-fertility practices, e.g., the adoption of N-fixing crops, improved animal husbandry systems with increased provision of animal manure and access to markets with price premium for organic products could help to lower the economic cost of the large-scale conversion.