Key findings:

This Knowledge Note presents two sets of analytical work to further our understanding of the links between public support in the agrifood sector and healthy diets. While the analytical work here is mostly suggestive, it paves the way for more in-depth research to unpack the relationship of agrifood support with healthy diets. The first set of analytics uses cross-country estimations to assess the potential correlation of agrifood public support with healthy diets for an average country. The second set of analytics uses within-country estimations to assess the correlation of agrifood public support with healthy diets in the context of a particular country. 

1/ An Opportunity to Leverage Agrifood Public Support

• Public support to the agrifood sector is large, distortionary, and inefficient. Globally, support to the agrifood sector comes to at least $854 billion per year. Most of this support is focused on producers, not on consumers, and comes largely in the form of trade and market policies that distort prices. Public support to the sector is also often regressive, benefiting wealthier farmers.

• Public support to the agrifood sector is focused much more on food commodities that are already high in consumption such as grains and meats, and much less on underconsumed, healthier food commodities such as fruits, vegetables, and dairy.

• The nature of agrifood public support varies across regions and across countries. In Sub- Saharan Africa, support to the agrifood sector is generally low. Agriculture subsidies in the region amounted to only $680 million per year, with public spending in the sector at 6 percent of national budgetary resources, well below the 10 percent target from the Maputo Declaration. Thus, there is a need to simultaneously increase agrifood public support and rebalance the support away from a heavy focus on input subsidies and toward more research and development.

• The current set of agrifood policies can be disconnected from public policies in other sectors, such as those in the health sector. For example, some countries tax the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages while providing significant support to domestic sugar production. For several of these countries with seemingly inconsistent policies around sugar consumption and production, the levels of sugar consumption exceed the WHO recommendations.

NB: On the graph below, the positive percentage indicates by how much the consumption of selected food groups needs to increase to meet the FBDGs.

Given that agrifood support is biased toward less healthy and nutritious commodities, this support potentially fuels the high costs of malnutrition. There is an imperative to rethink and repurpose agrifood support in a way that better promotes healthy diets. While there are often tradeoffs to repurposing, there are some windows of opportunity for multiple wins across different outcomes—such as climate, nutrition, and poverty alleviation. In Sub- Saharan Africa, some scenarios indicate that simultaneously increasing and rebalancing agrifood support can yield important benefits.

2/ Global-Level Analysis: Agrifood Support and Food Consumption

• The analysis finds that at the agrifood sector level, the level of non-Market Price Support has been growing quickly over time, while growth in General Services Support Estimate has been slow. General Services Support Estimate is found to increase overall productivity and translate into increased consumption of all food commodities assessed. Across all types of sectorwide support, the impact of General Services Support Estimate is found to be positive on the consumption of all commodities assessed. A 10 percent increase in General Services Support Estimate leads to a 0.14 percent increase in consumption of grains, a 0.22 percent increase in the consumption of meats, and a 0.35 percent increase in the consumption of sugar.