Investigators
Karen Wang - Stanford University
Marshall Burke - Stanford University

This project seeks to summarize, systematize, and make publicly available basic data on the agricultural production and consumption behavior of the global poor. Using existing household survey datasets from developing countries, the project aims to characterize food production and consumption patterns across rural and urban areas, income classes, and food groups. In particular, the project will focus on characterizing the net food consumption/production position of households (i.e. whether a household produces more than it consumes), across income classes, food groups, and individual crops, as well as describing vulnerability characteristics and the range of substitution options available to households in these different categories. Collecting and systematizing such data across a geographically varied range of two dozen poor countries, and making the summarized data publicly available in a searchable database, will fill a large void in the development field. The results of this project will inform efforts to prioritize and target agricultural-related interventions and policy reforms, and to understand and manage the distributional effects of various market developments on a regional-to-global scale.