Agricultural Production Structure and Food Insecurity: Evidence From Global Crop Data

Agricultural development has often emphasized specialization to improve productivity and food availability, but its implications for food security over time remain unclear. This study examines how crop‐value concentration is associated with food insecurity, focusing on short‐ and multi‐year relationships. Using global crop‐level data from FAOSTAT (1961–2022), we construct within‐country Theil indices to measure concentration and link them to food insecurity indicators from FAO and Our World in Data. Fixed‐effects panel models estimate contemporaneous and lagged relationships, controlling for development level and agricultural employment. Results suggest that higher concentration is associated with lower food insecurity in contemporaneous specifications. However, the association weakens in lagged models, and a positive coefficient emerges at the three‐year lag, although this estimate is only marginally significant and should be interpreted with caution. Because food insecurity data are available only for recent years, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects. The patterns are more pronounced in higher‐income, market‐integrated countries, indicating that the effects of agricultural structure may depend on temporal dynamics and economic context.