Dataset Information

The role of foreign capital and economic freedom in sustainable food production: Evidence from DLD countries.

ABSTRACT: In many developing countries, the deficiency in public and private investment has resulted in lower growth rates and stagnation in productivity. The need for a new paradigm of foreign investment and aid in agricultural production is becoming exigent in developing countries. Given the decline in per capita arable land, the rise in production costs, and the increase in population and urbanization, major changes in agriculture have been proposed to boost agricultural production. This present study endeavours to contribute to the existing literature by proving whether foreign capital and economic freedom could catapult food production into the much-anticipated growth. In that regard, we performed GLS with correlated disturbances, system GMM dynamic panel data estimators and D-H causality test. The study found that foreign capital as a whole plays a positive role in food production in developing and least developed countries, but FDI is insignificant in least-developed countries. Moreover, economic freedom plays a positive role in food production in least-developed countries but negative in developing countries. Policymakers and governments should create an enabling environment for sustainable food production.

SUBMITTER: Ding G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8312926 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

The role of foreign capital and economic freedom in sustainable food production: Evidence from DLD countries.

Ding Guoping G Vitenu-Sackey Prince Asare PA Chen Wenshu W Shi Xiaofeng X Yan Jun J Yuan Shichen S

PloS one 20210726 7

In many developing countries, the deficiency in public and private investment has resulted in lower growth rates and stagnation in productivity. The need for a new paradigm of foreign investment and aid in agricultural production is becoming exigent in developing countries. Given the decline in per capita arable land, the rise in production costs, and the increase in population and urbanization, major changes in agriculture have been proposed to boost agricultural production. This present study ...[more]

PMID: 34310660

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Project description:The stability of food supply chains is crucial to the food security of people around the world. Since the beginning of 2020, this stability has been undergoing one of the most vigorous pressure tests ever due to the COVID-19 outbreak. From a mere health issue, the pandemic has turned into an economic threat to food security globally in the forms of lockdowns, economic decline, food trade restrictions, and rising food inflation. It is safe to assume that the novel health crisis has badly struck the least developed and developing economies, where people are particularly vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition. However, due to the recency of the COVID-19 problem, the impacts of macroeconomic fluctuations on food insecurity have remained scantily explored. In this study, the authors attempted to bridge this gap by revealing interactions between the food security status of people and the dynamics of COVID-19 cases, food trade, food inflation, and currency volatilities. The study was performed in the cases of 45 developing economies distributed to three groups by the level of income. The consecutive application of the autoregressive distributed lag method, Yamamoto's causality test, and variance decomposition analysis allowed the authors to find the food insecurity effects of COVID-19 to be more perceptible in upper-middle-income economies than in the least developed countries. In the latter, food security risks attributed to the emergence of the health crisis were mainly related to economic access to adequate food supply (food inflation), whereas in higher-income developing economies, availability-sided food security risks (food trade restrictions and currency depreciation) were more prevalent. The approach presented in this paper contributes to the establishment of a methodology framework that may equip decision-makers with up-to-date estimations of health crisis effects on economic parameters of food availability and access to staples in food-insecure communities.

Project description:Young people are concerned about climate change. Their activism has attracted the attention of the media and politicians. Some of them are entering the market as consumers for the first time and can express their preferences without parental guidance: they are the Zoomers. Do these new consumers have enough knowledge about sustainability to be able to make choices in line with their concerns? Are they able to push the market towards change? A sample of 537 young Zoomer consumers were interviewed face-to-face in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. They were asked to indicate their level of concern for the planet and the first word they associated with sustainability, to rank in order of importance sustainability-related concepts and to indicate their willingness to buy sustainable products. The results of this study underline a high concern for the health of the planet (87.9%) and for unsustainable production methods (88.8%). However, the respondents perceived sustainability as consisting of a single main pillar, the environmental dimension (with 47% of the terms referring to sustainability), and two accessory pillars, the social (10.7%) and economic (5.2%) dimensions of sustainability. Respondents also showed a high interest in products obtained through sustainable agriculture, with a high percentage of them willing to pay for these products (74.1%). However, a substantial correlation was found between the ability to comprehend the notion of sustainability and the determination to purchase sustainable items, and vice versa, between those who reported difficulty comprehending the concept and their determination not to purchase these products. Zoomers believe that the market must support sustainable agriculture through consumer choices without paying a premium price. Clarifying the concept of sustainability, enhancing knowledge and assisting consumers in identifying sustainable products, as well as marketing them at reasonable prices, are essential actions for fostering a more ethical agricultural system.

Project description:BackgroundAlthough national food guides are designed, ostensibly, to translate scientific evidence with respect to food, dietary patterns, and health, their development has increasingly become a corporate/political process as well as scientific one; often with corporate/political influences overriding science. Our aim was to construct an unbiased, sustainable, evidence-informed Universal Food Guide to serve as a template for countries to develop their unique guides, thereby, provide a valid resource for health professionals, health authorities, and the public.MethodsTo address our aim, we conducted an integrative review of multiple evidence-informed sources (e.g., established databases, evidence syntheses, scholarly treatises, and policy documents) related to four areas: 1. Food guides' utility and conflicts of interest; 2. The evidence-based healthiest diet; 3. Constituents of the Universal Food Guide template; and 4. Implications for population health; regulation/governance; environment/climate/planetary health; and ethics.ResultsThe eating pattern that is healthiest for humans (i.e., most natural, and associated with maximal health across the life cycle; reduced non-communicable disease (NCD) risk; and minimal end-of-life illness) is whole food, low fat, plant-based, especially vegan, with the absence of ultra-processed food. Disparities in national food guide recommendations can be explained by factors other than science, specifically, corporate/political interests reflected in heavily government-subsidized, animal-sourced products; and trends toward dominance of daily consumption of processed/ultra-processed foods. Both trends have well-documented adverse consequences, i.e., NCDs and endangered environmental/planetary health. Commitment to an evidence-informed plant-based eating pattern, particularly vegan, will reduce risks/manifestations of NCDs; inform healthy food and nutrition policy regulation/governance; support sustainable environment/climate and planetary health; and is ethical with respect to 'best' evidence-based practice, and human and animal welfare.ConclusionThe Universal Food Guide that serves as a template for national food guides is both urgent and timely given the well-documented health-harming influences that corporate stakeholders/politicians and advisory committees with conflicts of interest, exert on national food guides. Such influence contributes to the largely-preventable NCDs and environmental issues. Policy makers, health professionals, and the public need unbiased, scientific evidence as informed by the Universal Food Guide, to inform their recommendations and choices.

Dataset Information

The role of foreign capital and economic freedom in sustainable food production: Evidence from DLD countries.

Publications

The role of foreign capital and economic freedom in sustainable food production: Evidence from DLD countries.

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