Universal food security program and nutritional intake: Evidence from the hunger prone KBK districts in Odisha

Andaleeb Rahman

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.07.003

Abstract

This article provides evidence on the role of consumer food subsidies in improving nutritional intake and diet quality by evaluating the expansion of the government food assistance program coverage in the hunger prone state of Odisha in India. In 8 districts of Odisha, popularly known as the Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) region which is notable for extreme poverty and starvation deaths, the government did away with the targeted food assistance program in 2008 and made the scheme universal. Using a Difference-in-Difference methodology over two repeated cross sectional household surveys, this article finds that the shift from targeted to a universal food security program in the KBK region of Odisha has led to an improvement in the household nutritional intake and diet quality. Further examination suggests that proportion of households consuming below the recommended dietary allowance of calorie, fats and protein has declined significantly in this region post the intervention.

Highlights

In order to address the problem of undernutrition, among the poor, consumer food subsidies are an important policy instrument in many of the low income countries
Results from the triple DID approach as explained in Eqs. (3) and (4) suggests that for the BPL households in the KBK region, universal Public Distribution System (PDS) has not led to any significant increase in the consumption of calories, fat or protein as compared to the BPL households in the non-KBK region (Table 9)
It suggests that during the time when rapid expansion and improvements in PDS was taking place in Odisha and PDS in the KBK region was made universal, the nutritional intake of the BPL households was not found to be different across the KBK and non-KBK districts

Summary

Introduction

In order to address the problem of undernutrition, among the poor, consumer food subsidies are an important policy instrument in many of the low income countries Social protection measures such as the food assistance programs have a crucial role to play in promoting greater nutrient intake and overall nutrition (Lentz and Barrett, 2013). Such measures have become important since growth in income, an essential driver of improved nutritional outcomes, has not translated into a proportionate decline in hunger and malnourishment (FAO, WFP, and IFAD, 2013) In such an environment, the provision of staple food at subsidized prices increases access to food to the beneficiaries and provides them an implicit income transfer which is the difference between the open market and subsidized price for every unit of the food item purchased.

Methods

Results

Conclusion