Food value chain transformations in developing countries: Selected hypotheses on nutritional implications

• Published in: Food policy 2013-10, Vol.42, p.139-150
• Main Authors: Gómez, Miguel I., Ricketts, Katie D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Categories; consumers (people); Developing countries; Food; Food access; food industry; Food marketing; Food policy; Food products; Food value chains; Foods; Hypotheses; Income; issues and policy; LDCs; Malnutrition; Markets; Nutrition; nutritive value; packaging; Policies; Poor; Rural areas; supply chain; Supply chains; Transformations; Triple malnutrition burden; Typology; Value analysis; Value chain
• ISSN: 0306-9192; 1873-5657
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.06.010

•We examine links between food value chains (FVCs) and malnutrition.•We offer a FVC typology based on participants, target market, and products offered.•Modern FVCs contribute to over-nutrition among affluent, urban people.•Traditional FVCs facilitate micronutrient access for urban and rural poor people.•Food fortification enables access to micronutrients in remote rural areas. We examine how the transformation of food value chains (FVCs) influence the triple malnutrition burden (undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies and over-nutrition) in developing countries. We propose a FVC typology (modern, traditional, modern-to-traditional, and traditional-to-modern) that takes into account the participants, the target market, and the products offered. Next, we propose selected hypotheses on the relationship between each FVC category and elements of the triple malnutrition burden. The primary finding is that the transformation of FVCs creates challenges and opportunities for nutrition in developing countries. For example, Modern FVCs may increase over-nutrition problems and alleviate micronutrient deficiencies for urban people with relatively high incomes. However, they have little nutritional impacts among rural residents and urban poor people, who primarily depend on traditional FVCs to access adequate quantities of calories and micronutrients. In addition, modern food manufacturers are leveraging traditional distribution networks (modern-to-traditional FVCs), substantially increasing access to low-priced processed/packaged foods in rural areas and low-income urban neighbors with mixed impacts on the triple burden of malnutrition. Further research should focus on the influence of FVC transformation on reduction of micronutrient deficiencies, on modeling demand substitution effects across food categories and the attendant policy implications for malnutrition.