Publication type: Journal Articles

Adapting the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index to Specific Country Context: Insights and Critiques from Fieldwork in India
Abstract The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a direct, multi-dimensional measure of women’s access to resources and decision-making in various domains of agriculture. However, several challenges characterize its use: adaptation of questionnaires to local agricultural contexts, modifications to index construction once underlying activities and adequacy thresholds are...

Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition Status: The Case of Iron Deficiency in India
Abstract In this paper we study the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and their iron deficiency status in Maharashtra, India. This is the first time the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) has been used in association with explicit measurement of medical biomarkers for...

Nutritional Outcomes of Empowerment and Market Integration for Women in Rural India
Abstract Over half of all women of reproductive age are affected by anaemia in India. In this paper we study the role that both household market integration and women’s empowerment in agriculture can play in determining women’s dietary diversity. Our analysis is based on primary...

Market Access, Production Diversity, and Diet Diversity: Evidence From India
Abstract Background: Recent literature, largely from Africa, shows mixed effects of own-production on diet diversity. However, the role of own-production, relative to markets, in influencing food consumption becomes more pronounced as market integration increases. Objective: This paper investigates the relative importance of two factors –...

Pandemics and food systems – towards a proactive food safety approach to disease prevention & management
Abstract Recent large-scale pandemics such as the covid19, H1N1, Swine flu, Ebola and the Nipah virus, which impacted human health and livelihoods, have come about due to inadequate food systems safeguards to detect, trace and eliminate threats arising from zoonotic diseases. Such diseases are transmitted...

Are Women in Rural India Really Consuming a Less Diverse Diet?
Abstract Background: It is widely considered that women have less diverse diets than other household members. However, it has been challenging to establish this empirically since women’s diet diversity is measured differently from that of other household members. Objective: In this article, we compare women’s...

Exploring Aflatoxin Contamination and Household-Level Exposure Risk in Diverse Indian Food Systems
Abstract The present study sought to identify household risk factors associated with aflatoxin contamination within and across diverse Indian food systems and to evaluate their utility in risk modeling. Samples (n = 595) of cereals, pulses, and oil seeds were collected from 160 households across...

India’s Rural Transformation and Rising Obesity Burden
Abstract While obesity across rural India has doubled in the last decade, research explaining such an unprecedented change is sparse. This paper shows that the rise in the incidence of rural obesity is associated with the process of structural transformation, especially within rural spaces. As...

Effect of Goat Management Practices on Animal Nutrition and the Environment in Western Odisha, India
Abstract India has a shortage of forage and feed for its estimated 535 million head of livestock. Nutrition is the most limiting factor for goats in India to fulfill their genetic potential. Most Indian goats are managed in extensive grazing systems and information about goat...

Ground Truthing the Cost of Achieving the EAT Lancet Recommended Diets: Evidence from Rural India
Abstract Read a policy brief based on this study. In this paper, we quantify the divergence in the cost of current diets as compared to EAT Lancet recommendations at the subnational-level in India. We use primary data on food prices and household food purchases, and...