Promoting fruit and vegetable consumption in rural China: Does off-farm work play a role?

Abstract Although off-farm work plays a significant role in facilitating agricultural production and rural development and improving household welfare, little is known about whether off-farm work can promote fruit and vegetable consumption in rural areas of developing countries. This paper sheds new insights by estimating the impact of off-farm work on fruit and vegetable consumption, measured by purchasing frequencies and consumption expenditures. We employ a two-stage residual inclusion estimator to address the self-selection bias and analyze data collected from 558 rural households in China. The results show that household heads’ off-farm work promotes rural households’ fruit and vegetable consumption by significantly increasing purchasing frequencies and expenditures. Further analysis confirms that household heads' off-farm work participation, rather than all household members, plays a prominent role in promoting household fruit and vegetable consumption. We also find that farmers’ behaviours of growing fruits and vegetables appear to substitute their purchasing behaviours.