The chickens and eggs dilemma: can poultry transfers reduce poverty?

By Kabeer Dawani and Ayesha Mysorewala

Photo credit: Pixabay.com

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent announcement to give chickens to women in rural areas, as part of a poverty alleviation strategy, has received a lot of flak.

Khan identified two benefits of this asset transfer programme: nutritious food for eating and more chickens and eggs to sell.

Although the prime minister claimed the programme has been tested, we are not aware of publicly available results from any evaluation of such a pilot in Pakistan. Moreover, scale-ups of successful pilots often disappoint in their results.

There has been one major study in Pakistan on a graduation strategy for the ultra-poor to transition to a higher standard of living. Its results highlight two factors that are important to consider.

First, when given the choice of a productive asset, only 10 per cent of the sample opted for chickens, with the majority choosing goats. This implies that poultry is seen as a relatively low priority asset by the population.

Second, the intervention tested in this study had a gamut of additional components, including technical skills training, health and financial support and monitoring. All of these are absent from Khan's proposal and so any conclusions about the success of this study cannot be drawn for our context.

Writing for Dawn.com, Myrah Nerine Butt nicely pointed out the potential drawbacks for women from such a programme. In a similar spirit of thoughtful engagement and building on her article, we will argue using theory and evidence that the economic, gender and nutritional impacts of such a programme are limited at best and negative at worst.

The economics does not add up

It appears that the government has already initiated the programme, with rural women in Rawalpindi being the first to receive the chickens.

Each woman is being given one unit, which is made up of five chickens, with a total of 2.5 million units to be handed out across the Rawalpindi division at a cost of Rs 1,200 per unit. This has two implications.

First, if a similar proportion is applied to the rest of Pakistan, this has a budgetary implication of approximately Rs 78 billion for the nearly 65 million rural women across Pakistan.

This is no trivial amount, especially given the budget deficit. In fact, it is almost exactly the annual revenue collection from taxes on mobile prepaid cards alone that the Federal Board of Revenue stands to lose due to the previous government's tax reforms.

The second issue that is apparent from the distribution in Rawalpindi is that, all of a sudden, there will be a lot of households within close vicinity of each other in possession of the chickens.

This means that supply of chickens and eggs will increase significantly, making any commercial sales of surplus chickens and eggs difficult; basic economic theory suggests that prices will be driven down because of the drastically increased supply, making any profits minimal.

Rural areas are usually not well connected to markets in the first place and this lack of outlet will be a problem once localised markets become saturated. There may also be a negative spillover of this — existing suppliers of poultry could also see their profits slashed.

In addition, there are significant costs for households associated with handing them chickens. These include higher use of cooking fuel to cook desi chickens because they take longer to cook; land is needed for rearing poultry, which poor households do not necessarily possess; and finally, the opportunity cost of time for women, which is an issue we return to below.

These will of course remain hypotheses until tested, but nevertheless are based on observations from field work in rural areas.

All these issues identified above make it unlikely for an asset transfer programme comprising chickens to have any impact on income poverty.

Nutrition and health

At first glance, giving households greater access to protein-rich foods may appear to be good, especially with undernutrition being a major issue in Pakistan; the latest Demographic Health Survey shows that 41pc of rural children are stunted.

More chickens and eggs to consume, then, may be good, but it is important to point out a number of caveats to this.

Globally, there is a lack of consensus and consistent evidence on whether livestock and poultry transfers can decrease stunting. It is agreed, however, that the success of the interventions is conditional on certain factors such as where households keep the animals and how well connected they are to markets.

In some cases, there has in fact been a negative impact of livestock and poultry ownership on nutrition due to diarrhea and other diseases related to proximity to livestock.

Poultry fecal waste also leads to increased risks of environmental enteropathy, a serious condition which limits the absorption of nutrients among children.

On this, a recent World Bank report on Pakistan has argued that we need to focus on improving sanitation, especially in rural areas, to make progress on stunting.

There may be a strong argument for giving chickens and other small livestock to women, given that women’s control of assets and resources in the household is associated with better nutrition. Research from the LANSA project shows that care of small livestock and poultry is usually the domain of the woman. We also found that income from the sale of products and animals themselves is rarely controlled by the woman.

Given this, if transfers of more animals do not improve women’s access to resources and say over how their products are used, it may well increase their time burdens. This reduces time spent on rest and care of children, which is detrimental to their own health and that of their children.

Evidence from a previous study on a livestock and poultry intervention did, in fact, show no significant improvements in women’s say in household decisions in Pakistan.

In sum, there is no guarantee that giving chickens to households will improve health and nutritional outcomes.

In fact, there exists a possibility that without checks on sanitation and women’s time poverty, providing chickens may make things worse.

What about poverty alleviation?

Any poverty alleviation strategy must aspire to sustainable and broad based development.

Redistribution programmes, which transfer cash (such as the Benazir Income Support Programme) and assets (such as chickens), can serve the important purpose of protecting the poor from shocks and mitigating their risks.

These are valuable goals in and of themselves; however, what they do not do is provide a basis for structural reform to alleviate poverty significantly.

If the prime minister is serious about alleviating poverty, he must focus on halting and even reversing Pakistan’s premature de-industrialisation.

It is the manufacturing sector which has the capability of providing high-productivity and high-wage jobs, and which has globally led to poverty alleviation and inter-generational social mobility.

In the midst of a narrowing manufacturing base, however, hopes for broad-based development remain bleak.
*This blog was originally published in Dawn.com's blogs section.

Women agricultural workers and their rights

By Saba Aslam

Consultative discussion on Rights and Well-being of Women Agricultural Workers in Pakistan

Photo credit: Waseem Gazdar

The National Commission on the Status of Women and Collective for Social Science Research hosted a consultation on the rights and wellbeing of women agricultural workers and their children in Pakistan. It was held on 29^th August 2018 at the Beach Luxury Hotel in Karachi. The consultation acted as a platform to bring together activists, lawyers, researchers, parliamentarians, women agricultural workers, members from the National and Provincial Commissions on the Status of Women, and policy makers who discussed the issues faced by women agricultural workers in Pakistan, and debated potential ways of moving forward in recognizing and protecting rights of women agricultural workers at local, provincial and national levels.

Dr. Yasmin Zaidi, Director of Center of Gender and Policy studies (CGaPs) presented key findings of UN Women’s recent report on status of rural women in Pakistan. Citing secondary data, Dr. Zaidi provided insights on women’s extensive contribution in the agriculture sector. She said that 53 percent of women involved in agriculture do unpaid work out of which 60 percent belong to the rural areas. Their work is often considered informal, and hence they are not counted as workers. This makes them virtually absent across public policy design and discourse. They are denied basic rights such as public health services, and social security. She suggested that policies and programmes must focus on improving women’s economic empowerment, their participation in politics and their right to access justice against violence.

Mr. Haris Gazdar, Director of Collective for Social Science Research presented findings from a LANSA study on “Women’s Work and Nutrition” stressing the link between women’s work, their health and the health of their children. He discussed associations between women’s work and other exogenous factors such as household food insecurity, mother’s education and household wealth status that could be potential drivers of women’s work in agriculture. His presentation revealed that the nutritional status of women agricultural workers and health of their children was negatively linked to their status of work. For example, women who undertook strenuous work during pregnancy and after giving birth had poor nutritional outcomes.  

Of Market Queens and Women’s Empowerment

by Ayesha Mysorewala

Street market in Accra, Ghana
Photo credit: Wikimedia commons

I recently visited Ghana for the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health conference 2018 (ANH 2018) to present the findings of our LANSA research paper on the potential of agricultural asset transfers to improve nutrition in Pakistan.

What really struck me about Ghana was the overwhelming presence of women on the streets. In Makola, the largest open-air market in Accra, women and ‘market queens’ dominated the selling space – loudly marketing everything from clothes and jewellery to freshly obtained snails and vegetables.

Let’s talk about…wheat flour fortification

By Haris Gazdar

Wheat flour chakki in Pakistan
Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

1. What is food fortification?
Food fortification is the addition, usually at an industrial scale, of essential micronutrients to commonly consumed foods, to overcome nutritional deficiencies in vulnerable populations. It is a response to ‘hidden’ hunger – or the persistence of deficient diets in populations where hunger, as such, may not be obvious. Common examples of deficiencies are minerals (iron, zinc, iodine) and vitamins. Common examples of food fortification are salt iodisation, fortification of milk, condiments, cooking oils and staple foods with various micronutrients.

2. Why is it in the news?
Major stakeholders in the world of nutrition are supporting or taking part in fortification initiatives currently being launched. These are donor-supported programmes in various provinces to fortify wheat flour with iron and folic acid, salt with iodine, and cooking oil with Vitamin A. Mandatory regulation has been put in place in some provinces.

3. Why is food fortification so popular among stakeholders?
It seems like a low-cost response that can reach large numbers of those in need relatively easily through existing government and market systems. It does not require major economic uplift or poverty reduction – in fact it is best suited to addressing micronutrient deficiencies precisely in those populations which no long face extreme hunger and poverty.

4. So, does it really work?
Yes, no, maybe.

Salt iodisation has a good record globally and in Pakistan. Staple food fortification with folic acid has worked in many countries to address a foetal condition known as NTD. But there is little evidence that staple food fortification with iron reduces anaemia.

And in Pakistan the fortification of wheat flour with iron and folic acid has been tried several times without any publicly available evidence of success.

5. What is the hitch with wheat flour fortification?
There may be several, some technical others practical.

Technically, there is no clinching evidence that adding iron to staple food is an effective way of reducing anaemia. There are questions about quantities and absorption.

Practically, for fortification to be even considered, it should be applied to a food that is consumed by much of the target group through the year. In Pakistan there is no precise information on:

• What proportion of wheat flour that is consumed is milled industrially? Estimates range from 30 to 50 per cent. 
• What proportion of the population consumes milled flour all-year round, and what proportion of the population most vulnerable to anaemia consumes it? 
• Why do most rural households and many urban ones prefer chakki flour, and those that do use milled flour often opt for ‘fine’ varieties rather than regulated flour? 

6. Anything else?
Yes.

Around half of Pakistan’s population suffers from inadequate energy intake. One in three households say that they are vulnerable to hunger. So, Pakistan needs to urgently deal with actual hunger and not just hidden hunger.

7. What does that have to do with wheat fortification?
We need a serious reform of food security policies to ensure that no person is vulnerable to hunger. Current policies which aim to address food security are based on government wheat procurement and its subsidised supply to private sector mills who are then supposed to provide subsided flour to the population. This clearly does not work. The system has created adverse incentives and rent-seeking for capturing subsidies. Regulatory weaknesses in the sector arise from these rent-seeking opportunities.

Wheat fortification projects, by focusing on a technical solution around the same inefficient sector, are in danger of doing two things:

• Detracting from the need to address actual hunger, and not just ‘hidden’ hunger 
• Ignoring numerous sector analyses which call for a reform of the wheat system 

8. What needs to be done?
Policy and public debate must focus on ‘hidden’ hunger as part of a broader agenda of food security and combatting hunger – rather than imagining that stand-alone technocratic solutions are possible. And existing fortification programmes might avoid disappointment if they recognised some of the problems highlighted here, revised some of their expectations, and took on board existing critiques of the wheat subsidy system. 

This blog is a part of a new “Let’s talk about…” series that distils key research findings aiming to start a public conversation on emerging issues.

The Dairy Reform That Wasn’t

By Rashid Mehmood and Natasha Ansari

Modern, packaged milk still struggles to compete with the traditional alternative of loose, raw milk.
Photo credit: Fawad A. Najam, Flickr.com

There is a public debate about the quality and safety of milk sold to consumers. Most recently the Supreme Court took regulatory action with respect to some brands of packaged milk and also issued notices to companies regarding clearer labeling of whiteners as not being milk. Public attention on the dairy sector is welcome, but as government and courts gear up for action, it is important to understand the roots of current regulatory lapses, and to set out a broader agenda of reform that goes beyond consumer protection.

Teach a man how to fish? Social transfers in a “hungry” nation

by Hussain Bux Mallah

You can teach a man to fish, but does that ensure his household’s nutrition?
Photo credit: Pixabay.com

In the last two decades, there has been a lot of debate around social transfers, particularly cash transfer programmes. Do cash transfers give people dignity of choice, help them mitigate shocks and empower them, or do they “patronize” and provide an incentive for doing less work? Opponents almost always evoke the “teach a man to fish” proverb. However, there is an old joke built off this same proverb that says that even if one is taught how to fish it is likely that ‘he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day anyway.’ There is a grain of truth to this: with or without conditions, one can’t control what people choose to do with their time and resources. Still, many countries do try to ascertain the possibility that recipients spend cash transfers responsibly. In the United States, ten states require passing tests for drug use before one is eligible for welfare cash assistance or benefits.

Invisible work, visible harm

by Amna Akhtar

Panelists at Annual Conference on Rural Women Day (from left to right):
Ms. Akeela Naz, Ms. Kaukab Jehan, Dr. Huma Qureshi, Ms. Khawar Mumtaz,
Ms. Sabiha Nazeer and Ms. Benazir Jatoi

Pakistan relies heavily on agriculture and livestock for subsistence. Yet, over half of the children in rural areas do not achieve their growth potential (stunting) and every sixth child is too thin (wasted). Those responsible for most of this produce, the female agricultural workers, have some of the poorest health and nutrition outcomes. How is this possible and what can we do to remedy this situation?

Sustainable Farming Systems for Food and Nutrition Security

By Alan Dangour

Female agricultural workers picking vegetables in Mirpurkhas
Photo credit: Waseem Gazdar

The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition call on all countries to end hunger and prevent malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. This is quite a challenge, and it is a challenge with sustainable agriculture and food systems at its very heart.

Connecting research to ongoing debates

by Saba Aslam

Women picking vegetables in Mirpurkhas
Photo credit: Waseem Gazdar

Agricultural work in Pakistan is becoming feminised and accounts for more than 70 per cent in the work force. How well is women’s agricultural work is recognised amongst the policy makers of the country is still unclear, but it is a key area of interest for researchers in understanding the linkages between women’s agricultural work and their health outcomes.

Understanding agri-food value chains for nutrition

by Nigel Poole, Haris Gazdar and Mar Maestre

Photo credit: Flickr/ADB

Undernutrition is a central and persistent challenge for global development, above all in South Asia. Mobilising agri-food businesses to support efforts to reduce undernutrition is challenging. The LANSA (Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia) team has been researching for the past two years how the markets for food can be improved so that substantive and sustained consumption of nutrient-dense foods by the poor in households that are post-farm-gate is achieved. Here, nutrient rich foods are those that, if consumed in adequate quantities (WASH and health conditions not considered) are likely to improve the nutritional status of individuals who are undernourished in terms of micronutrients. We understand agri-food value chains as the initiatives, either donor, government or business driven that we will be analysing.

Plugging the gaps between farm and fork

by Samar Zuberi and Rashid Mehmood

Increased production does not mean improved diets for the undernourished
Photo credit: Flickr/Asian Development Bank

Nutrition has been an increasing concern in Pakistan for almost half a decade. The release of the 2011 National Nutrition Survey showed no improvement in nutrition indicators in decades, and highlighted alarming rates of undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies. These results alongside a strong international push to re-focus on nutrition have succeeded in placing nutrition higher on the policy agenda within Pakistan. Pakistan has recently adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were proceeded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). SDG #2 aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

My choice or not?

by Sidra Mazhar

Women returning from fields after a hard day's work
Photo credit: Flickr/Khalid Mir

Agricultural practices and interventions affects nutrition of women, children and the entire household through various pathways and it is interesting to note that women empowerment, though much neglected, has a significant role to play when it comes to improving nutrition. To understand this link, I recently attended a webinar on “Women’s nutrition through an empowerment lens” organized by Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH) and Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA). The webinar explored the impact of women empowerment on women’s and their children’s nutrition. It detailed the effects of women empowerment in livestock-focused-agriculture followed by an investigation of women empowerment in nutrition index.

Women’s work and wages

by Haris Gazdar

Photo Credit: Collective for Social Science Research

While researching the linkages between women’s work in agriculture and nutrition outcomes in Pakistan, for Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA), we came across an instructive puzzle. A big segment of the workforce is ruled out from participating in a particularly labour-intensive activity. The harvesting of cotton, an important cash crop, generates a great deal of seasonal employment in the rural economy but the work is almost entirely carried out by women who might remain employed on a non-stop basis for up to four months. Women and men, labourers and employers, all concur that it is women’s work, and a man stands to lose respect and status if he takes part in it.

Shifting Norms

by Mysbah Balagamwala

 by  Nasha Ila 

My colleagues and I spent some time in the rural areas of Badin and Shahdadpur in the Sindh province of Pakistan, to conduct initial exploratory research for a LANSA study on the impact of women’s agricultural work on nutrition. The aim of the study is to understand the trade-off women working in agriculture face between work and care and the effect that can have on nutritional outcomes. Our preliminary qualitative research consisted of interviews with women from poor households – small landowners, sharecroppers and agricultural labourers – which focused on antenatal care, infant and young child feeding, access to health care and fertility behaviour.  This approach was particularly useful for observing processes, relations and norms.

Scaling up Food Fortification in Pakistan: A Feasable Option

by Samar Zuberi

Photo Credit: Aga Khan University – Farheen Ayub Khan

A recent food fortification scoping study endorses food fortification strategies in Pakistan. The report was commissioned by DFID Pakistan and conducted by MQSUN. Local analysis on effective means to address micronutrient undernourishment or ‘hidden hunger’ is much needed. Over half of Pakistan’s population of children under 5 suffer from anaemia and vitamin A deficiency and 39% are zinc deficient. Half of non-pregnant mothers are anaemic, and 42% are deficient in vitamin A and, the same percentage are deficient in zinc (NNS 2011).

The beginning of a dialogue: Responsive agriculture-nutrition research

by Samar Zuberi

How can agriculture and food-related policies and interventions be better designed to improve nutrition outcomes, particularly for young women and girls? Dialogue around this question was started at a workshop hosted by the Collective for Social Science Research / Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) on 15 April in Karachi. The workshop brought together diverse stakeholders in agriculture and nutrition including senior officials from provincial governments, academic researchers, representatives of international development partners, and civil society organizations and activists. 

Considering fragility: A disconnect between agriculture and nutrition

by Haris Gazdar

  by  UN Women Asia & the Pacific 

How can agriculture contribute more to improving nutrition in countries like Pakistan (as well as others in South Asia) where the sector continues to employ a large proportion of the workforce, even while its contribution to national income undergoes decline?  To find answers to this question is the main objective of the Research Programme Consortium Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA).  The latest IDS Bulletin which focuses on nutrition in Pakistan provided the perfect opportunity of showcasing emerging LANSA work on the country. The evidence paper on Pakistan which I co-authored with my colleague Mysbah Balagamwala at the Collective for Social Science Research reviews existing evidence on the pathways and disconnects between agriculture and nutrition using a framework developed for India by the research programme TANDI (Tackling the Agriculture-Nutrition Disconnect in India). A piece written on the article in the IDS Bulletin can be found here​.