(African Economic Research Consortium, 2023-07) Nour, Samia Mohamed; Ebaidalla, M. Ebaidalla
This paper investigates the causal effect of agricultural landholding on child nutritional status in rural Sudan, using the 2014 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS). Adopting propensity score matching (PSM) and instrumental variable (IV) techniques, the paper indicates that landholding significantly reduces child malnutrition for the full and female samples, implying that for children whose families have access to agricultural land, there is a reduced likelihood that they would be exposed to child nutrition problems such as stunting and underweight. For the male sample, the
results reveal that agricultural landholding plays no significant role in improving the nutritional outcome of male children. This finding implies a gender disparity in the effect of landholding on children nutritional situation, as girls benefit significantly from agricultural landholding compared to boys. Therefore, policies that support land reform and a fair distribution of land would be a crucial part of a strategy to reduce the malnutrition of children under five in rural Sudan.