Energy and nutrient production in Ethiopia, 2011-2015: Implications to supporting healthy diets and food systems

• Published in: PloS one 2019-03, Vol.14 (3), p.e0213182-e0213182
• Main Authors: Baye, Kaleab, Hirvonen, Kalle, Dereje, Mekdim, Remans, Roseline
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Afdeling Humane voeding; Agriculture; Analysis; Animals; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Crops, Agricultural; Diet; Diet, Healthy; Energy Intake; Ethiopia; Food; Food Supply; Health; Health aspects; Human Nutrition; Human Nutrition & Health; Human Nutrition (HNE); Humane Voeding; Humane Voeding & Gezondheid; Humans; Livestock; Malnutrition; Medicine and Health Sciences; Nutrition; Nutrition Policy; Nutritional Status; Outcome and process assessment (Medical care); Overweight persons; People and Places; Risk factors; Vitamin C; Vitamins
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213182

Agricultural sector plays a key role towards achieving healthier diets that are deemed critical for improving health and nutritional outcomes. To what extent the current food supply systems support healthy diets remains unknown. Using annual and nationally representative data on crop and livestock production in Ethiopia, we assess the national agricultural sector from a nutrition lens and its role in supporting healthy diets in the country. We do so by converting the agricultural production into energy and nutrients for the period of 2011-2015. These data show that the national food production has increased dramatically over the 5-year period to supply more than 3,000 calories per capita in 2015. Moreover, nutrient production gaps have substantially decreased (2011-15), but deficits in energy (5%), vitamin C (16%), and calcium (9%) production remained in 2015. However, this production growth-coming primarily from the cereal sector and at the expense of other food groups-led to a decrease in production diversity as reflected by a drop in the Shannon index between 2011 and 2015. Together these findings imply that the production increases in Ethiopia would need to be sustained to feed the rapidly growing population but more emphasis should be given to diversification to support healthy and nutritionally diversified diets.