Rising Food Prices and Coping Strategies : Household-level Evidence from Afghanistan

This paper investigates the impact of
rising wheat prices -- during the 2007/08 global food crisis
-- on food security in Afghanistan. Exploiting the temporal
stratification of a unique nationally-representative
household survey, the analysis finds evidence of large
declines in real per capita food consumption and in food
security (per capita calorie intake and household dietary
diversity) corresponding to the price shocks. The data
reveal smaller price elasticities with respect to calories
than with respect to food consumption, suggesting that
households trade off quality for quantity as they move
toward staple foods and away from nutrient-rich foods such
as meat and vegetables. In addition, there is increased
demand in the face of price increases (Giffen good
properties) for wheat products in urban areas. This study
improves on country-level simulation studies by providing
estimates of actual household wellbeing before and during
the height of the global food crisis in one of the
world's poorest, most food-insecure countries.