Investments in Agricultural Innovation and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract Empirical evidence proves that agricultural R&D expenditure and researchers attract high returns though the investments have long-gestation periods. Nonetheless, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) invests meanly in agricultural R&D and researchers. This study explores the impacts of agricultural R&D expenditures and researchers on food security in the region and across the sub-regions. The study applies Bootstrapped LSDV and two-step system GMM techniques to analyze the data on 23–24 SSA countries over the period 2000–2016. Our findings show that investments in agricultural innovation substantially increase food accessibility, availability, and utilization through food productivity growth. Indeed, the investments are more effective in enhancing food utilization than in boosting food availability and accessibility. The findings also reveal that the investments are effective in enhancing food security at least in Southern and Western African sub-regions while they instead exacerbate the problem of food insecurity in Central Africa. The policy implications are adequate resources should be channeled into proper agricultural research and development to introduce new crop varieties or significantly improved crops, etc. There should also be coordination between large and small countries in investments so that the countries can benefit from economies of scale. JEL Codes: A19, Q19, Q18, Q16, I23