Commercialization carries both benefits and challenges for agricultural households

Creating opportunities to more effectively link farmers in Africa south of the Sahara with local, regional, and global markets has become a key development focus in recent years. However, questions remain about the impacts that increased agricultural commercialization may have on household food consumption and food and nutrition security. A recent article in Food Security examines such impacts in Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe and finds both positive and negative trade-offs to increased market integration.

The study looked at household survey data from 3,993 households across the four study countries, specifically from areas experiencing increasing agricultural commercialization. The type and extent of commercialization varied widely among the surveyed households, ranging from around 30% of crops sold to almost 100% and from smallholder farmers with no formal market contracts to small-and-medium enterprises engaged in more formal commercialization models to large farmers groups with significant market integration.

Using this data, the authors evaluated households’ food consumption and nutrition using three indicators:

1. Households’ perceptions of their own food security;
2. The dietary diversity of adult women and men within each household; and
3. Household consumption of ultra-processed foods and drinks. 

Results varied significantly throughout the study countries, suggesting that context plays an important role in the linkages between agricultural commercialization and food and nutrition security. This context includes what agricultural products are produced and sold (food vs non-food items), what foods are kept for consumption, and what foods are available for households to purchase in their local markets.

In three of the four study countries (Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and to a lesser extent Ghana), households with higher levels of commercialization perceived themselves as having higher levels of food security. The surveyed households in Nigeria did not share this perception, which the authors posit may be due in part to Nigeria’s higher levels of food price inflation (up to 20% in some areas).

Households that perceived themselves as more food-secure also reported higher dietary diversity. However, overall dietary diversity in each of the four study countries remains very low; no more than one-quarter of survey respondents consumed what is considered even a minimally diverse diet.

In addition, dietary diversity results also varied depending both on the level of agricultural commercialization and on the country context. In Ghana, increased commercialization led to higher dietary diversity for both men and women; in Nigeria, households with higher commercialization did not report higher dietary diversity scores. In Tanzania, households with both the highest and the lowest levels of commercialization saw the most diverse diets, which the authors suggest may illustrate a “transition period” in which farming households struggle to maintain dietary diversity as they move way from own-production and begin to integrate more with markets.

In all four of the study countries, ultra-processed foods were not consumed in high levels for the most part. This could be due to the fact that surveyed households were in rural areas, where availability of ultra-processed foods may be lower. However, households in all four countries consumed sugar-sweetened beverages, and that consumption rose alongside increased commercialization in all countries except Nigeria. Again, availability of these beverages in local markets may play an important role in consumption levels.

The importance of market context also appeared when authors looked at levels of own-production for household consumption compared to levels of commercialization. Across the three study countries in which starchy staple crops like rice and maize were produced (Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria), the impact of households’ use of these crops for their own consumption had both positive and negative relationships with dietary diversity. According to the authors, this supports the idea that the transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture remains a risky proposition for many households. The success of that transition depends again on local food market contexts, specifically what foods are available for households to purchase in the market.

Overall, while increased commercialization can lead to higher incomes and higher perceptions of food security, it does not necessarily enhance dietary diversity and may lead to increased consumption of unhealthy ultra-processed food products like sugary beverages. These trade-offs warrant further study to ensure that increasing agricultural households’ market integration does not come at the cost of nutrition security.

Sara Gustafson is a freelance communications consultant.