1. Food Prices,
Poverty, and
Household Diets
Channing Arndt
Egypt NPS Seminar Series
Institute of National Planning,
Cairo, Egypt
May 22, 2023 | 2:00 to 4:00 pm
Photo credits: Mahmoud Diab/Unsplash

2. www.cgiar.org
Trends in global food, fuel & fertilizer prices & LMIC
economic growth
Strong economic growth in
LMICs before 2008
-4.2%
3.3%
268 276
303
2007-08 food, fuel &
fertilizer crisis 2011-12 food, fuel &
fertilizer crisis
2021-22 food, fuel &
fertiilizer crisis
-4.0%
-2.0%
0.0%
2.0%
4.0%
6.0%
8.0%
10.0%
12.0%
14.0%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
GDP
growth
in
LMICs
Food,
fuel
&
fertilizer
price
indices
(2000=100)

3. www.cgiar.org
IFPRI’s RIAPA Data & Modeling System
Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA)
Forward-looking economywide framework that captures entire national economies, unpacks agrifood systems and subnational regions, and tracks how
policies, investments, and climate risks affect different sectors, workers and population groups
Dynamic
economywide
model
Value chain
tools (PPVC)
Investment
tools (AIDA)
Global models
(trade, world prices)
Agri-food system
GDP | Jobs
Water use | Resilience
Households
Poverty | Gender
Hunger | Diets
Nonfood policies &
investments
Demography &
macroeconomy
Outputs
Biophysical (crops,
livestock)
Infrastructure
(roads, water, power)
Integrating Models Covering Developing Countries
35 countries with RIAPA models
(3 still under development)
52%
Population Poor
82%
Hungry
73%
Capturing Agrifood Systems
Agriculture
Processors
Traders
Traders
Food services
Input suppliers
Agrifood system components
32.7
62.6 58.7
36.7
15.7
20.9
15.4
12.7
22.6
23.3
24.1
16.2
20.1
22.2
28.3
15.2
4.5
11.6
23.8
7.1 4.0 6.9 9.0
World LIC LMIC UMIC HIC
Share of agrifood GDP in 2019 (%)
LIC = Low-income countries | LMIC = Lower-middle
UMIC = Upper-middle | HIC = High
Foresight and Metrics to
Accelerate Food, Land and
Water Systems
Transformation
Contact Karl Pauw or James Thurlow
61%
Agric. jobs
21%
Global GHGs
Weblink Weblink

4. www.cgiar.org
Tracking Diet Costs and Quality
ReDD | Reference Diet Deprivation Index
RIAPA
CoRD
EAT-Lancet
WB ICP
ReDD
LSMS
Consumption
amounts
Price changes
0.69
0.64
0.60
0.59
0.55
0.52
0.51
0.49
0.42
0.41
Mozambique
Uganda
Ethiopia
Nigeria
Ghana
Rwanda
Senegal
Cambodia
Kenya
Bangladesh
Staples Vegetables Fruits Dairy Protein Fats
National ReDD indices
Deprivation gap decomposed by major food group
2015/16
2015/16
2016/17
2016/17
See Pauw et al. (2022)
Factoring diets into decision-making
ReDD is a compound deprivation measure
Incidence Share of pop. deprived in at least one food group
Breadth Number of food groups households are deprived in
Depth Average six of food consumption gap across groups
• Should consider dietary change alongside poverty, jobs
and other policy goals
• In addition to consumer preferences, diet quality depends
on the availability, cost, and affordability of healthy
foods
• RIAPA is a model that tracks both product
markets/prices and household incomes
• ReDD index is a gap measure: tracks how far
consumption levels are from a healthy diet, rather than
just counting deprived people
• ReDD can be tracked over time using household
surveys (not only used in models)
2014/15
2011/12
2016/17
2010/11
2016/17
2014/15

5. www.cgiar.org
3.2%
1.3%
1.2%
1.8%
2.1%
0.3%
2.0%
1.2%
2.5%
2.0%
0.4%
1.9%
1.5%
1.4%
4.4%
0.7%
1.9%
1.1%
0.9%
Bangladesh
Cambodia
DRC
Egypt
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Mali
Malawi
Myanmar
Niger
Nigeria
Nepal
Philippines
Rwanda
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Food prices Fertilizer prices Fuel prices
3.3%
2.4%
1.3%
1.8%
3.2%
0.6%
2.6%
3.3%
2.4%
7.6%
0.9%
0.9%
4.5%
2.3%
3.8%
2.6%
2.1%
0.9%
0.9%
Bangladesh
Cambodia
DRC
Egypt
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Mali
Malawi
Myanmar
Niger
Nigeria
Nepal
Philippines
Rwanda
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Food prices Fertilizer prices Fuel prices Increase in poor
population (1000s)
1,783
1,272
2,441
485
419
1,241
388
159
209
390
1,118
1,832
4,260
153
1,411
702
442
5,078
4,100
Foresight and Rapid Response Modeling System
(FARRMS)
Poverty headcount rate (%-point) Prevalence of undernourishment
(%-point)
Population with worse diet deprivation
(%-point)
Increase in
undernourished
population (1000s)
3,910
420
1,475
555
105
1,137
491
162
97
212
1,082
1,901
2,336
74
1,093
261
462
4,922
1,053
7.5%
3.3%
1.3%
13.0%
1.7%
0.9%
3.0%
0.2%
0.4%
11.8%
0.7%
4.5%
6.1%
0.6%
3.8%
5.5%
1.6%
0.2%
0.3%
Bangladesh
Cambodia
DRC
Egypt
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Mali
Malawi
Myanmar
Niger
Nigeria
Nepal
Philippines
Rwanda
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Food prices Fertilizer prices Fuel prices
Population with
deteriorating diets
(1000s)
8,350
1,730
589
476
881
912
72
45
178
533
1,159
13,510
1,915
273
1,641
49
72
11,700
6,348

6. www.cgiar.org
Egypt: Poverty, stunting, and obesity/overweight
Source: Poverty and Equity Brief, 2023
Poverty Headcount Rates
Source: Egypt DHS 2014
Prevalence of obesity/overweight
Source: Estimated
by Global Obesity
Observatory
Nutritional Status of Children

7. Nutrition as a Basic Need
Mahrt et al 2022

8. www.cgiar.org
Food basket energy shares
Energy standard Healthy diet
Energy standard Healthy diet
Protein 152 207
Calcium 48 110
Iron 100 136
Magnesium 89 137
Phosphorous 132 172
Zinc 85 105
Copper 200 266
Vitamin C 62 212
Thiamin 79 119
Riboflavin 47 82
Niacin 105 128
Vitamin B6 95 130
Folate 71 166
Vitamin B12 52 146
Vitamin A 56 136
% of Avg. Requirements
Myanmar: the energy standard typically used to define food poverty
lines results in a food basket heavy in starchy staples & deficient in most
essential nutrients
Mahrt et al. 2022

9. www.cgiar.org
Nutrition (healthy diets) as a basic need recasts poverty
estimates
The poverty measures published by the World Bank
are anchored in a basic food basket the meets caloric
needs.
Healthy diet food poverty lines reflect food-based
dietary guidelines and cultural food norms of
relatively poor households
Aligns poverty measurement practice with the
modern paradigm of a healthy, balanced diet for all
Implications: Applying a healthy diets lens to poverty
measurement dramatically increases the proportion
of the poor in Myanmar
20
8
24
48
27
56
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
National Urban Rural
Energy-based poverty line
Healthy diet poverty line
Poverty Rate in Myanmar (% of population)
Mahrt et al. 2022

10. www.cgiar.org
IFPRI/CGIAR is Keen to:
• Continue to work with the Republic of Egypt, taking a responsive and demand driven approach, through
the National Policies and Strategies research initiative and via IFPRI’s office in Cairo.
• Further develop the Foresight and Rapid Response Modeling System (FARRMS) in close collaboration
with Egyptian and other partners.
• Engage with researchers in Egypt in projects of national and international relevance. An application of
the ‘nutrition as a basic need’ framework of poverty measurement to Egypt could be an example of such
a collaboration.