Local Egg Production Centers Significantly Increase Maternal and Child Egg Consumption in Rural Zambia

Poor dietary quality is an important determinant of maternal and child undernutrition. Animal source foods can provide critical micro‐ and macronutrients, but their consumption in the rural, low‐income communities of the Luangwa Valley, Zambia is constrained by cost and local scarcity. To test whether increased local production could increase community acquisition and maternal/child consumption of eggs, we built small‐scale egg production centers (EPCs) in 20 communities. Each was owned and operated by 4–5 trained farmers and stocked with 40 layer hens. We assessed impacts on young child and maternal egg consumption in the surrounding communities relative to control communities using a quasi‐experimental design. Methods Twenty communities were purposively assigned to the intervention. Twenty additional communities (located 3–8km from the EPCs) served as controls. In each of the 40 communities, households with a child aged 6–36 months were recruited at the start of each data collection period, with a target of 20 per community. In‐home questionnaires were administered to the mothers of enrolled children at baseline (December 2014, n=838 children) and 4 months after egg production began (December 2015, n=830 children). Egg consumption was operationalized as the number of eggs consumed in the 7 days prior to the survey by the woman and her child. Bivariate analyses were performed, and a difference‐in‐difference analysis estimated the impact of the intervention on mean egg consumption. Results Approximately 88% and 63% of households from project and control areas, respectively, reported buying eggs from the EPCs at least occasionally. The percentage of households that consumed any eggs increased significantly from baseline in intervention (+19.9 percentage points [pp], p <0.001) but not control areas (+4.2 pp, p=0.233). The percentage of children who consumed any eggs increased significantly in intervention (+19.9 pp, p <0.001) but not control (+6.5 pp, p=0.060) areas, while the percentage of women who consumed any eggs increased significantly in both intervention (+23.0 pp, p< 0.001) and control (+8.5, p=0.012) areas. The mean number of eggs consumed by children and their mothers increased in both intervention (+0.92 and +0.94 eggs/wk, by children and women, respectively) and control areas (+0.39 and +0.53 eggs/wk, by children and women, respectively; Figure 1). In the difference‐in‐difference analysis, mean egg consumption among young children and their mothers increased by 0.5 (p=0.002) and 0.4 eggs/wk (p=0.021), respectively, in intervention areas relative to controls. Discussion Increased local availability of eggs resulted in significant gains in egg consumption among young children and their mothers. There was clear spread of the intervention to control areas, suggesting high demand for eggs in the region, but reducing the point estimates of the intervention's impact. Nonetheless, despite this contamination, there was a significant impact of the project in intervention areas relative to controls, suggesting proximity to EPCs is associated with consumption. Our results suggest that this model may be a viable, market‐based approach for increasing access to and consumption of animal source foods in rural, resource‐poor communities – and may have positive regional effects in neighboring communities. Current research is examining the model's long‐term effects on child dietary quality and growth. Support or Funding Information NIH T32 OD011000 (SED); Cornell University Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (AJT)