Impact of the eKutir ICT-enabled social enterprise and its distributed micro-entrepreneur strategy on fruit and vegetable consumption: A quasi-experimental study in rural and urban communities in Odisha, India

Publication date: Available online 4 December 2019Source: Food PolicyAuthor(s): Laurette Dubé, Cameron McRae, Yun-Hsuan Wu, Samik Ghosh, Summer Allen, Daniel Ross, Saibal Ray, Pramod K. Joshi, John McDermott, Srivardhini Jha, Spencer MooreAbstractThis paper reports results of a quasi-experimental study designed to assess the impact of an information and communication technology (ICT) –enabled ecosystem, led by the social enterprise eKutir, on household fruit and vegetable consumption in Odisha, India. eKutir aims at providing self-sustaining solutions to poverty and undernutrition in developing countries by leveraging ICTs through ecosystem development anchored into a distributed micro-entrepreneurial strategy. eKutir’s farming micro-entrepreneurs (FME) provide agricultural knowledge, inputs, and market linkages at household and community level, followed by progressive integration of other micro-entrepreneurs at different points along the value chain on both supply and demand sides. The present case examined core FMEs along with retail micro-entrepreneurs (RMEs) deployed in low-resource rural and urban communities. Structural equation modeling was used to compare rural outcomes and the role of homegrown consumption as a mediator. Multivariable linear regression and ANOVA were used to test group differences in the urban sample. Positive β coefficients represent an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption in communities exposed to the eKutir ecosystem in contrast to th...
Source: Food Policy - Category: Food Science Source Type: research