Agricultural Productivity and Undernourishment in Developing Economies: Panel Evidence from Cereal Yield

Abstract

Agricultural productivity is linked to lower undernourishment in developing economies, but the relationship is weaker and more conditional than standard policy narratives often assume. The evidence shows a negative association between cereal yield and undernourishment after accounting for country-specific conditions, common annual shocks, and broader development factors: a 1,000 kg/ha increase in lagged cereal yield corresponds to an estimated 0.7 percentage-point decline in the prevalence of undernourishment. The coefficient is modest and only weakly significant, suggesting that productivity matters, but not as a self-sufficient route to food security. A clearer signal appears when productivity is measured more broadly: replacing cereal yield with the food production index produces a stronger and more precisely estimated negative association, indicating that food security gains are not confined to staple grains alone. The relationship is also sharply uneven across income groups. It is strongest in lower-middle-income countries, where domestic markets are more capable of transmitting productivity gains while undernourishment remains high enough to respond. In low-income countries, the coefficient is larger in magnitude but imprecise, consistent with weak market access, storage constraints, conflict exposure, and distribution bottlenecks. In upper-middle-income countries, the association is close to zero, reflecting low baseline undernourishment and the diminishing role of agriculture in national food security outcomes. These findings suggest that agricultural productivity remains an important part of the food security agenda, but policies focused only on raising yields are unlikely to be sufficient unless they are paired with improvements in storage, distribution, and access to food markets.