Economic Development, Agricultural Markets, and Child Nutrition in Uganda

The primary research objective of this dissertation is to identify potential pathways for improving child nutrition outcomes in Uganda. The dissertation includes three essays. Essay 1 examines how price changes influenced the costs of obtaining a nutritionally adequate diet in Uganda. During 2007-2008 Uganda experienced particularly sharp increases in the prices of staple foods, which increased the risk of food and nutrition insecurity, especially for poor households and net buyers of staple foods. Results show that the real cost of obtaining a nutritionally-adequate diet grew at a rate of 3 to 9 percent per year over the period 2000 to 2011. Diet costs have exceeded the poverty line for most years since 2000, with the gap widening in the period 2007-2008. These results highlight the importance of food prices to overall nutrition, and document spatial heterogeneity in diet costs in Uganda. Essay 2 measures agricultural price dynamics in Uganda. The analysis seeks to better understand the process of price formation, and to specifically explain how rainfall and other factors influence food prices and price transmission. A vector autoregressive model (VAR) is used. Results suggest that markets are not segmented, but there is incomplete pass-through of changes in prices across markets in all the commodity markets in the short-run, a one-month period. The results also suggest that rainfall anomalies are not important determinants of food prices and may have little influence on price transmission. The results also show that most of the commodity markets are not integrated in the medium-run, a two-month period. Essay 3 studies the factors associated with child nutrition outcomes in Uganda, with an emphasis on connections between the agricultural sector, rainfall-related health risks, and anthropometric measurements of children under age 5. The second essay seeks determine the factors that are most strongly associated with child nutrition. A hierarchical (multilevel) model is used. Results show that diarrheal disease has a negative and signification association with child outcomes, and that this negative association strengthens as rainfall increases. This reveals the importance of the household’s disease environment for a child’s health in the short-term. Results also show that the main crop yield has a positive and significant association with child nutrition outcomes in the short-term. However, this association is negative for areas that receive low rainfall and is positive for areas that receive high rainfall. This reveals the importance of rainfall in influencing crop production, and thus nutrition through food consumption and its consequent impacts on child health in the short-term. Results also show that rainfall received during the gestation period has a positive and significant association with child nutrition outcomes. The pathway in this case is that rainfall influences production which has a beneficial effect on child health in the long-term. The findings of the three essays underscore the importance of developing and supporting interventions that raise the purchasing power of the poor and increase nutrition education and outreach aimed at cost-effectively achieving dietary diversity. The results also suggest a role for public interventions aimed at reducing high transactions costs. These include improvements in energy infrastructure, physical market infrastructure, road, and rail transportation systems. Targeted on commodities such as matooke (plantain) and rice, and markets such as Masaka and Lira. Strengthening the capacity of the private sector through promotion of credit and transport services, to enable access to regional markets, and reduction in storage losses. Also suggested are the need for targeted agricultural interventions during periods of very low rainfall, and targeted nutrition and health interventions during periods of high rainfall