Regional differences in agricultural and socioeconomic factors associated with farmer household dietary diversity in India

Abstract

This paper investigated whether there are any regional-level differences in factors associated with farmer household dietary diversity using the Food Consumption Score (FCS), in two states of India: Haryana and Gujarat. Our results suggest that the factors associated with farmer household dietary diversity were region-specific, with diverse drivers across districts. For example, in Vadodara (Gujarat), farmers who had greater crop diversity and planted more cash crops had higher dietary diversity while large landholders in Bhavnagar (Gujarat) had higher dietary diversity. In Karnal (Haryana), more educated farmer households and those who cultivated large landholdings had higher dietary diversity while farmers in Bhiwani (Haryana) who were more educated and sold more crops to market had higher dietary diversity. Thus, factors associated with FCS differed even within the same state. These results suggest that in some regions of India, higher crop diversity and better education could improve farmer household dietary diversity. On the other hand, in some other regions, dietary diversity is best improved through the income generation pathway, where households that earn increased income from selling more crops were able to purchase more diverse food from markets. Our study suggests that the drivers of household dietary diversity across rural India are complex and heterogeneous; thus, future policies and programs to improve farmer household nutrition should be tailored considering regional differences in the factors associated with household nutrition.