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Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India

Author

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  • Raghunathan, Kalyani
  • Headey, Derek D.
  • Herforth, Anna

Abstract

Malnutrition is endemic in India. In 2015-16 some 38% of preschool children were stunted and 21% were wasted, while more than half of Indian mothers and children were anemic. There are many posited explanations for the high rates of malnutrition in India, but surprisingly few discuss the role of Indian diets, particularly the affordability of nutritious diets given low wages and the significant structural problems facing India’s agricultural sector. This study was undertaken to address knowledge gaps around the affordability of nutritious diets in rural India. To do so we used nationally representative rural price and wage data to estimate the least cost means of satisfying India-specific dietary recommendations, referred to as the Cost of a Recommended Diet (CoRD), and assess the affordability of this diet relative to male and female wages for unskilled laborers. Although we find that dietary costs increased substantially over 2001-2011 for both men and women, rural wage rates increased more rapidly, implying that nutritious diets became substantially more affordable over time. However, in absolute terms nutritious diets in 2011 were still expensive relative to unskilled wages, constituting approximately 50-60% of male and about 70-80% of female daily wages, and were often even higher relative to minimum wages earned from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Since many poor households have significant numbers of dependents and substantial non-food expenditure requirements, it follows that nutritious diets are often highly unaffordable for the rural poor; we estimate that 45-64% of the rural poor cannot afford a nutritious diet that meets India’s national food-based dietary guidelines. Our results point to the need to more closely monitor food prices through a nutritional lens, and to shift India’s existing food policies away from their heavy bias towards cereals. Achieving nutritional security in India requires a much more holistic focus on improving the affordability of the full range of nutritious food groups and ensuring that economic growth results in sustained income growth for the poor.

Suggested Citation

  • Raghunathan, Kalyani & Headey, Derek D. & Herforth, Anna, 2020. "Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India," IFPRI discussion papers 1912, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1912
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    1. Bai, Yan & Costlow, Leah & Ebel, Alissa & Laves, Sarah & Ueda, Yurika & Volin, Natalie & Zamek, Maya & Herforth, Anna & Masters, William A., 2021. "Review: Retail consumer price data reveal gaps and opportunities to monitor food systems for nutrition," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    2. Bai, Yan & Alemu, Robel & Block, Steven A. & Headey, Derek & Masters, William A., 2021. "Cost and affordability of nutritious diets at retail prices: Evidence from 177 countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Cattaneo, Andrea & Sadiddin, Ahmad & Vaz, Sara & Conti, Valentina & Holleman, Cindy & Sánchez, Marco V. & Torero, Máximo, 2023. "Viewpoint: Ensuring affordability of diets in the face of shocks," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    4. Stehl, Jonas & Depenbusch, Lutz & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2025. "Global poverty and the cost of a healthy diet," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    5. Kumar Biswajit Debnath & Xinfang Wang & Toby Peters & Sanskriti Menon & Satish Awate & Gaurang Patwardhan & Navneet Wadkar & Mahesh Patankar & Priyanka Shendage, 2021. "Rural Cooling Needs Assessment towards Designing Community Cooling Hubs: Case Studies from Maharashtra, India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-19, May.
    6. Dizon,Felipe Jr Fadullon & Wang,Zetianyu & Mulmi,Prajula, 2021. "The Cost of a Nutritious Diet in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9578, The World Bank.
    7. Soumya Gupta & Payal Seth & Mathew Abraham & Prabhu Pingali, 2022. "COVID-19 and women's nutrition security: panel data evidence from rural India," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(1), pages 157-184, April.
    8. Fantu Nisrane Bachewe & Bart Minten, 2023. "Towards understanding vegetable and fruit markets for improved consumption and nutrition: The case of Ethiopia," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(4), pages 989-1005, August.
    9. Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, 2022. "Diet Therapy and Public Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-7, July.
    10. Schneider, Kate R., 2022. "Nationally representative estimates of the cost of adequate diets, nutrient level drivers, and policy options for households in rural Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    11. Narayanan, Sudha, 2021. "Food security from free collection of foods: Evidence from India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    12. Headey, Derek & Hirvonen, Kalle & Alderman, Harold, 2024. "Estimating the cost and affordability of healthy diets: How much do methods matter?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. Tian, Xu & Lin, Faqin, 2023. "Trade liberalization and nutrition transition: Evidence from China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    14. Meenakshi, J.V. & Quisumbing, Agnes, 2025. "Diet quality and micronutrient intakes in nutritional value chains: A synthesis and suggestions for further research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    15. Kate R. Schneider & Luc Christiaensen & Patrick Webb & William A. Masters, 2023. "Assessing the affordability of nutrient‐adequate diets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 503-524, March.
    16. Demont, Timothée, 2022. "Coping with shocks: How Self-Help Groups impact food security and seasonal migration," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    17. Poole, Nigel & Donovan, Jason & Erenstein, Olaf, 2021. "Viewpoint: Agri-nutrition research: Revisiting the contribution of maize and wheat to human nutrition and health," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    18. Schneider, Kate, 2021. "Nationally Representative Estimates of the Cost of Adequate Diets, Nutrient Level Drivers, and Policy Options for Households in Rural Malawi," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315035, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Gundersen, Craig, 2021. "Viewpoint: A proposal to reconstruct the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) into a universal basic income program for food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    20. Headey, Derek & Bachewe, Fantu & Marshall, Quinn & Raghunathan, Kalyani & Mahrt, Kristi, 2024. "Food prices and the wages of the poor: A cost-effective addition to high-frequency food security monitoring," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    21. Singh, Vartika & Stevanović, Miodrag & Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon & Mishra, Abhijeet & Ghosh, Ranjan Kumar & Popp, Alexander & Lotze-Campen, Hermann, 2025. "A comparison of the effects of local and EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations on selected economic and environmental outcomes in India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    22. Liu, Xinghua & Liang, Yue & Chen, Kevin Z., 2024. "Dairy trade liberalization and child stunting: Evidence from low- and middle-income countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

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