Chapter-10: Green Energy Adoption and Household Food Security in the Developing World: Pathways, Challenges, and Policy Implications

This chapter reviews the literature on green energy adoption, focusing on household solar energy and its implications for household consumption and food security in developing countries. It clarifies the concept of energy poverty and examines how access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy improves household welfare, extending the household-resource themes examined for dairy farming in Chapter 5. The review develops the conceptual relationship between energy access, consumption behaviour, and food security through pathways such as reduced energy expenditure, increased savings, improved food storage, safer cooking, and greater dietary diversity. It examines the key determinants of solar adoption – including socioeconomic characteristics, access to finance and subsidies, electricity reliability, and institutional support – drawing on evidence from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka to identify adoption barriers and distributional effects across income groups and regions. The chapter also reviews the methodological approaches used in prior studies, including logit, probit, Tobit, ARDL, propensity score matching, and structural equation modelling. The analysis identifies a persistent research gap: existing studies emphasize the determinants of adoption rather than its household-level, post-adoption impact on consumption and welfare. The chapter closes by developing a conceptual framework linking solar adoption to food security through changes in energy expenditure and savings, moderated by income and regional disparities, and calls for further household-level research to support evidence-based energy and food security policy.