With only a few months remaining, Zambia still has a long way to achieving the millennium
development goal of halving the number of stunted children by the end of 2015. Almost half
of the children in Zambia remain undernourished and 40% of them have stunted growth, a
long term malnutrition effect. This makes Zambia one of the countries with the highest levels
of malnutrition in the world. The most vulnerable are the children from rural households
which depend entirely on rainfed seasonal agricultural production and income, and survive on
diets that are deficient in proteins and other important nutrients.
Applying the Generalized Propensity Score (GPS), which analyzes impact of particular
interventions on a specific outcome and using Eastern province as a case study, this paper
evaluates the impact of agricultural diversification (in terms of calorie and protein
production) and commercialization on reducing malnutrition. The study uses two uniquely
rich datasets which comprise social-economic, agriculture and anthropometric data observing
1,120 children from different farm households. We measured household agricultural
diversification using the Simpson Index over production of major food groups including
starchy foods, legumes-nuts-seeds, starchy vegetables, non-starchy vegetables, starchy fruits,
non-starchy fruits, dairy, and eggs. Production is measured in two ways, firstly in terms of
calorie production and secondly in terms of protein production. While commercialization is
measured as an index derived from the share of agricultural sales in household’s total value
of agricultural production.