Do subsidies improve nutrition?

Friday, 12 October 2012 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

BANGKOK (IRIN): When food price subsidies are given to the poor, the assumption is that they improve both access and nutrition, but the impact these subsidies have on the quality of nutrition is inconclusive, say experts.

Food price subsidies – whether donor or government funded – are provided through conditional cash transfers where people receive cash to purchase food, or vouchers with cash value that can be redeemed for food at selected stores. Both practices share a similar market-based approach that boosts a person’s ability to buy food.

“The volatile food prices are driving nutritious foods out of reach of the world’s poorest people and are threatening to exacerbate the global crisis of malnutrition,” said Liam Crosby, policy and research adviser on hunger at Save the Children’s office in the UK.

By the end of 2012, almost one-third of World Food Programme’s assistance will be in the form of cash and vouchers.

Nearly all urban and most rural dwellers buy food from markets, even if they grow their own food, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Poor people are already spending some 70 per cent or more of their incomes on food, but their incomes are so low that even spending 70 per cent does not buy enough food to meet their dietary needs,” said Sumiter Singh Broca, policy officer at FAO’s office in Bangkok.

The Asian Development Bank warned in February 2012 that even a 10 percent increase in food prices could push 30 million more Indians and four million more Bangladeshis into extreme poverty, while in Pakistan an additional 3.5 million people could drop below the US$1.25-a-day income mark.

“This means that a food subsidy will be particularly helpful to poor families as they will almost certainly buy more food,” said Broca.

Urban households in South and Southeast Asia spent up to half of their food budgets on cheap, low-nutrition foods, according to a 2010 FAO study. These households consumed less than half of the nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits that are recommended.

Lack of micronutrients like Vitamin A, iron, zinc and iodine is a leading cause of preventable mental disability, increases the risk of premature death and leads to chronic malnutrition, according to health experts.

In Asia more than one third of children under the age of five are “stunted” – too short for their age – while 27 per cent weigh too little for their age, a sign of chronic malnutrition.

“Lack of resources, low knowledge and sub-optimal [health] behaviours all contribute to malnutrition at some level,” said Dorothy Foote, UN Children Fund’s nutrition security programme specialist for Asia. “Nearly half of pregnant women and pre-school children in Asia are anaemic, and progress in addressing this has been very slow, even though we know that anaemic adults are less productive and anaemic children are more lethargic, more prone to illness, and have more difficulties in learning.”

Anaemia is mostly due to lack of iron. Some 13 million children in South and Southeast Asia are born every year with mental disabilities caused by lack of iodine - found in iodized table salt and naturally in shellfish and saltwater fish - while nearly half a million children under five years old die due to Vitamin A deficiency in the same period, according to the NGO Micronutrient Initiative, headquartered in Canada.