The Global Food Security Safety Dilemma of Fertiliser Technology Use: An Analysis of Policy-Induced Mediation

Abstract

The world s natural population growth has generated a paradoxical challenge between food security and safety (environmental quality). In this paper, we address this question to establish the security safety paradox by examining increased fertiliser use on decreasing land endowment, and we establish how policy inducement reflects on the food security versus safety issue. Based on the generalised method of moment estimations and panel data of 72 countries from 2002 to 2010, we for the first time answer this question and offer insightful developments in this direction. Firstly, we observe that shrinking land endowment has significant direct and indirect impacts (agricultural protection and food trade policies). Our analysis demonstrates that a decrease in the land endowment increases the fertiliser use intensity. Secondly, policy for agricultural protection induces different effects on security and safety issues in development and world economies. Developed countries have introduced policies to reduce fertiliser usage trading food security for safety. By contrast, developing countries have introduced policies to increase food security trading food safety for security. Thus, developed countries tend to import food from developing countries to bridge the gap, and developing countries achieve economic gains. Acknowledgement : This research was supported by the fundings sponsered by an agreement between FAO and CSC of China, Humanities and Social Science Fund from Ministry of Education (16YJC790112, 15YJA790093), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71673041) and the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities (N150604006). We would like to thank participants at the 2015 CES conference in Chengdu and at the 2016 sino-Korea regional economics conference in Kyungsung University, Korea for helpful comments.