Articulating fertilizer subsidy effects on women’s diet quality by food supply source in Mali

Abstract

Background Mali’s fertilizer subsidy program aims to reduce food insecurity among the nation’s predominantly rural people by jump-starting productivity gains of major crops. This paper contributes to sparse evidence regarding its effects. Methods Theory predicts that agricultural productivity can affect diet quality directly through two channels. The production channel influences the availability of food for household consumption or sale. The income pathway, resulting from sales, leads to household food expenditure. We test this hypothesis by applying propensity score matching methods to farm household survey data collected from 2400 households in Mali in 2018. Results We find that the overall effect of the fertilizer subsidy on women’s dietary diversity is positive in the Niger Delta and negative on the Koutiala Plateau. Further examination by food supply source reveals no subsidy effects on the dietary diversity provided by on-farm production in either zone. The subsidy negatively influences dietary diversity of foods sourced as gifts in the Niger Delta. Subsidy effects on dietary diversity accessed through food purchases are strong and positive in the Niger Delta, but negative on the Koutiala Plateau. The Koutiala Plateau is found in the region of Sikasso, where rising incomes from cotton production, which is the major export crop of the region and of the nation, have been shown not to alleviate poverty and malnutrition (a dilemma known as the “Sikasso Paradox”). Conclusions Our approach reveals that additional income from increased yields stimulated by subsidized fertilizer can enable off-farm purchases of more nutritious food and thereby improve nutritional outcomes for women.

Decision analytical methods for assessing the efficacy of agroecology interventions

“…They have been applied for land use management forecasting for flood-based farming systems (Liman Harou et al 2020) and in finding suitable areas for aquifer storage and recharge (Owusu et al 2017). Spatial decision analysis has been applied to generate future agricultural land use maps in Denmark (Vogdrup-Schmidt et al 2019), to assess regional differences in subsidy effects on women's diets in Mali (Assima et al 2022), for generating suitability maps for medicinal species in New Zealand (Moore et al 2016) and for managing agroecological viticulture in France (Aouadi et al 2021). Communicating expected decision outcomes in a geographical format could have powerful implications for addressing the issue of lack of scientific support for scaling-up agroecology.…”

“…Decision analytical approaches, based on decision theory, have a rich history of applications to real-world problems in many disciplines, including business management (Keeney 2004), ecology (Perera et al 2011) and conservation (Dee and Gerber 2012;Esmail and Geneletti 2018). These approaches have begun to gain recognition for supporting agricultural development (Shepherd et al 2015;Luedeling and Shepherd 2016;Lanzanova et al 2019) and related topics like nutrition and dietary diversity (Whitney et al 2017;Assima et al 2022).…”

Improving wasting among children under-5 years in Malawi: The role of farm input subsidies

“…Despite the wide implementation of Agricultural Input Subsidies (AIS) and recent interest in assessing the linkages of the programs to food and nutrition security outcomes, the evidence continues to be scanty and unclear ( 26 , 35 ). Like many AISs, the FISP has targeted increased productivity of agricultural households by providing input subsidies to small-scale farmers ( 21 ).…”

“…While the prevalence of wasting among children in Malawi is lower than the global estimates of 6.7%, at 3.7%, the presence of wasting among children is highly undesirable. Despite the widespread use of subsidies for agricultural inputs as a crucial agricultural policy for reducing food insecurity in SSA countries, such as Malawi, discourses examining the pathways of the subsidy programs to nutrition outcomes are sparse and do not take into consideration the changing policies and implementation arrangements of the programs ( 35 ). Further, few studies link the FISP to children's outcomes ( 25 ).…”