Self-sufficiency in a Small Country? Evidence from an empirical analysis along the supply chain in Puerto Rico

The related literature in self-sufficiency is less informative about the ability of domestic farmers in small countries—which are usually net food importers and more prone to food insecurity—to compete in prices with imports. To increase self-sufficiency in a small country, agricultural goods could substitute imports at different stages of the supply chain. We use Puerto Rico as our case study, where we collected new private price data at different stages along the supply chain that were not previously available. We found that domestic farmers had lower prices than import costs for 30 of 74 agricultural goods. If this economy managed to become self-sufficient in only five of those items, it could have added more than 118 million to its annual gross national product. There were 52 goods that domestic farmers could competitively sell to supermarkets and 22 goods at the restaurant stage. They could also provide 24 imported goods at the family market level. Another alternative was direct marketing, where farmers could compete in almost all the items surveyed. We end up with policy recommendations. JEL classification: Q11, Q12, Q13, Q18.