Food Sourcing and Diets: Evidence from 45 Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Globally, 2.4 billion people are food insecure, and 3.1 billion lack access to nutritious diets, with no substantial improvement anticipated soon. While over 1.1 billion people engage in agriculture, recent evidence suggests that even agricultural households may purchase most of their food. However, there is a lack of evidence beyond case studies on the relationship between dietary diversity and food sources in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using a sample of 1,105,681 households representing 2.8 billion people in 45 LMICs, we examine how different food sources contribute to household diets across regions, socioeconomic characteristics, and time. Our findings reveal that markets are the principal food source in LMICs, even for rural subsistence-oriented and extremely poor households—those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition—challenging the assumption that these groups rely primarily on their own production. Dietary diversity is primarily driven by purchased foods, including nutritionally important foods like eggs and meat, which are almost exclusively sourced from markets. This leads to pronounced differences in the consumption of these foods between household income groups, with poorer households consuming less fruits and animal-source foods. In some settings, foods from gifts and in-kind contributions are also significant sources of diet diversity. Improving affordability and market access, not just agricultural production, is critical for improving dietary diversity for the most vulnerable in LMICs.