Off-farm employment, agriculture production activities, and household dietary diversity in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas of Asia

作者：Yunli Bai, Xuanye Zeng, Chao Fu, Linxiu Zhang · 发表于：Journal of Integrative Agriculture · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.jia.2023.11.016 · 被引用次数：23 · 研究领域：Child Nutrition and Water Access、Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact、Energy and Environment Impacts

Access to off-farm employment has been expected to be one of important approaches to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition, which are two important targets of achieving Zero Hunger. This study aims to investigate the role of off-farm employment in improving dietary diversity through substitution effect and complementary effect with agricultural production activities, and income effect. Using the primary survey data among 1282 households at 12 sites in environmentally and economically vulnerability areas of China, Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar in 2019, Poisson/Tobit/Probit/OLS regressions and Instrument variable method are adopted. The results show that off-farm employment is positively associated with household dietary diversity and the consumption of flesh meat, fish and other aquatic animals, fruits, and milk and dairy products, which are rich in protein and microelement. The results of mechanism analysis show that off-farm employment contributes to household dietary diversity by improving crop diversity, especially for the poor household, boosting the probability of livestock breeding for the household with middle 1/3 income, and increasing household income. The positive association between off-farm employment and household dietary diversity are much higher for the households with the bottom 1/3 disposal income, low illiteracy, and in the middle-high income countries. These findings imply that off-farm employment does play a vital role in achieving multiple ben...