The association between crop diversity and children’s dietary diversity: multi-scalar and cross-national comparisons

IF 5.6 1区农林科学 Q1 FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Food Security Pub Date : 2024-07-03 DOI:10.1007/s12571-024-01458-9

Carina Isbell, Daniel Tobin, Brian C. Thiede, Kristal Jones, Travis Reynolds

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Abstract

Food insecurity is rising across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where undernourishment continues to affect a large portion of the population, particularly young children. Studies examining the associations between crop diversity and childhood nutrition have recently proliferated but are characterized by inconsistent results and two key limitations. First, many studies focus only on the household level, overlooking the prospect that more diverse crops at village and regional levels may contribute to household food security. Second, many studies pool data from multiple countries, which may obscure important context-specific aspects of nutrition outcomes. Drawing on Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from 10 SSA countries, in combination with agricultural production estimates for 112 crop species, this study explores the associations between crop diversity at multiple scales (10-, 25-, and 50-kilometer radii) and children’s dietary diversity (HDDS). In addition to producing overall estimates across our sample, we measure country-specific associations to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of the overall model show a negative association between crop diversity and dietary diversity. However, the country-specific analyses uncover extensive variability in these associations: in some cases, diversity is highly positively correlated with HDDS, while in others the estimated effect is negative or nonexistent. Our findings suggest that country-level analyses provide important nuance that may be masked in pooled analyses. Moreover, these findings foreground the importance of looking beyond household-level analyses to understand the dynamic role that local crop diversity, and its exchange across space, can play in supporting children’s dietary diversity.

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作物多样性与儿童膳食多样性之间的关系：多尺度和跨国比较

撒哈拉以南非洲地区（SSA）的粮食不安全问题日益严重，营养不良继续影响着该地区的大部分人口，尤其是幼儿。最近，有关作物多样性与儿童营养之间关系的研究大量涌现，但研究结果并不一致，而且存在两大局限性。首先，许多研究只关注家庭层面，忽视了村庄和地区层面更多样化的作物可能有助于家庭粮食安全的前景。其次，许多研究汇集了多个国家的数据，这可能会掩盖营养结果的重要特定方面。本研究利用 10 个撒哈拉以南非洲国家的人口与健康调查（DHS）数据，结合 112 种作物的农业产量估计值，探讨了多种尺度（10、25 和 50 公里半径）的作物多样性与儿童膳食多样性（HDDS）之间的关系。除了得出样本的总体估计值外，我们还测量了特定国家的相关性，以考虑空间异质性。总体模型的结果显示，作物多样性与膳食多样性之间存在负相关。然而，国别分析发现了这些关联的广泛差异性：在某些情况下，多样性与 HDDS 高度正相关，而在其他情况下，估计效应为负或不存在。我们的研究结果表明，国家层面的分析提供了重要的细微差别，而这些细微差别可能会在汇总分析中被掩盖。此外，这些发现还强调了超越家庭层面分析的重要性，以了解当地作物多样性及其跨空间交换在支持儿童膳食多样性方面可能发挥的动态作用。

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来源期刊

Food Security FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY-

CiteScore

14.00

自引率

6.00%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Food Security is a wide audience, interdisciplinary, international journal dedicated to the procurement, access (economic and physical), and quality of food, in all its dimensions. Scales range from the individual to communities, and to the world food system. We strive to publish high-quality scientific articles, where quality includes, but is not limited to, the quality and clarity of text, and the validity of methods and approaches. Food Security is the initiative of a distinguished international group of scientists from different disciplines who hold a deep concern for the challenge of global food security, together with a vision of the power of shared knowledge as a means of meeting that challenge. To address the challenge of global food security, the journal seeks to address the constraints - physical, biological and socio-economic - which not only limit food production but also the ability of people to access a healthy diet. From this perspective, the journal covers the following areas: Global food needs: the mismatch between population and the ability to provide adequate nutrition Global food potential and global food production Natural constraints to satisfying global food needs: § Climate, climate variability, and climate change § Desertification and flooding § Natural disasters § Soils, soil quality and threats to soils, edaphic and other abiotic constraints to production § Biotic constraints to production, pathogens, pests, and weeds in their effects on sustainable production The sociological contexts of food production, access, quality, and consumption. Nutrition, food quality and food safety. Socio-political factors that impinge on the ability to satisfy global food needs: § Land, agricultural and food policy § International relations and trade § Access to food § Financial policy § Wars and ethnic unrest Research policies and priorities to ensure food security in its various dimensions.