Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge in low- and middle-income countries. Agricultural commercialization is widely promoted as an intervention to improve food security. A systematic review and meta-analyses are used to synthesize quantitative evidence on the effects of commercialization on household food security among rural smallholders in developing countries. Seventy-four studies met the criterion for inclusion in the meta-analyses. These 74 studies contributed 252 effect sizes for continuous food security outcomes, 40 effect sizes for binary food-security outcomes, and 25 effect sizes for binary food-insecurity outcomes. Using robust variance meta-regression, results suggest agricultural commercialization significantly improves food security. Subgroup meta-analyses show considerable heterogeneity across food security measurements, crop types, and intervention categories. Production-oriented interventions—particularly input provision, production diversification, and sustainable intensification—present consistent positive effects, while market access and support interventions exhibit favorable impacts on food security. Measurement inconsistencies and geographic concentration of studies, however, limit broader generalizability. Overall, the findings indicate that commercialization can enhance food security, but greater standardization of food-security metrics and further quantitative examination of underlying mechanisms are needed to strengthen evidence-based policy design.
Jiang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: