Food Consumption and Economic Development

Abstract

The previous chapters have focused on the production of agricultural goods and have analyzed those in exogenous as well as in endogenous growth frameworks. In this chapter we focus on the consumption side, especially on the influence food demand and consumption can have on the development process. The produce of the agricultural sector is crucially different from most industrial output. Food is necessary to stay alive, and under- or malnutrition can considerably impair a human’s ability to work. While this may sound trivial and negligible from the point of view of an industrialized economy, such a relation can have important consequences for the development of an economy.