Child malnutrition in rural kenya: A geographic and agricultural classification

This article uses data from the 1978–79 Rural Child Nutrition Survey in Kenya, linked to agricultural data on 2,583 households from the Integrated Rural Surveys, to estimate the extent of chronic malnutrition among children in sub-populations classified by province, occupation, landholding and cropping pattern. Child malnutrition is the worst in Coast and Nyanza Provinces, especially in the families of smallholders. There is some evidence that households growing coffee in Eastern Province are worse off, and households growing drought-resistant crops better off, than monocrop maize farmers. In the west, smallholders growing new maize varieties have higher rates of chronic malnutrition than those growing traditional varieties. © 1986, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.