Analysis of the impact of agricultural R&D investment on food security

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how agricultural R&D investment affects the food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR). Several studies have argued a causal relationship between agricultural R&D investment and food security. However, most of these studies are based on conceptual logic and few studies have conducted an empirical analysis. This study verifies whether agricultural R&D investment affects the food SSR as a representative indicator of food security. A total of 822 data sets of 41 countries have been used in the analysis in this study and include developed and developing country data over the period 1981–2009. Food self-efficiency is used as a dependent variable, and agricultural R&D investment and other variables are used as explanatory variables. The estimation results show that, first, the cereal SSR and income are in an inverted U-shaped relationship. Second, increases in land productivity increase the cereal SSR and, lastly, the cereal SSR ratio and agricultural R&D investment are in a U-shaped relationship.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural R&D investment
• food self-sufficiency ratio
• food security

JEL CLASSIFICATIONQ16:

• Q16
• Q18
• Q19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Although the definition of the food SSR varies in studies, the food SSR ratio is typically defined as the ratio of domestic food production measured against domestic food consumption (see e.g., Otsuka, Liu, and Yamauchi 2013; Brunstad, Gaasland, and Vårdal 2005; Mittenzwei et al. 2007).