'Local Milk for Local Schools?': Children Dairy Consumption Behaviours, Willingness to Pay and Health in Indonesia

Abstract

School milk programs have potentials to better linking farmers to markets and increasing dairy consumption in addition to providing nutritional benefits and positive impacts on academic performance. To our knowledge, this is the first study that links between school-aged children dairy consumption behaviours and Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) within the context of SMPs in developing countries. Using data from a school-based survey targeting over 500 primary school students in Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia, this study examines student’s diet diversity, food security status, dairy consumption behaviours, pocket money’s allocation, WTP and SMPs’ impacts on health indicators based on a micro-econometric analysis. An instrumental variable model is applied to address the endogeneity of a variable on school participation at milk programs. The idea is to understand how much pocket money the students would spend on dairy products and to compare some health indicators between students in participating and non-participating schools. Consideration of this pocket money allocation is important to assess the sustainability of such a student-funded milk program and explore an alternative to government-funded programs.