Analysis of the agricultural price differential by countries worldwide, under criteria of food security of supply

Resumen

Food security of supply is a much-debated issue in the branch of economic scienceof the study of development and globalization, to address the problem of hunger in the world.Both concepts, food prices and supply food security, are closely related, since a decrease inthem would be a clear help in the fight against malnutrition in particular and poverty ingeneral. In the present document, this concept will be analysed from the perspective of theprice of food, focusing on the differential of food prices between producers and consumers.This communication aims to study these variables in 73 countries around the world, toidentify common behaviour profiles, by means of the application of several statisticalmethodologies. It can be concluded that the margins have increased in the developedcountries (Western Europe, the United States, Japan and Canada mainly) in the period understudy, with some stability in the food security indicators. On the other hand, margins decreasein developing countries, with notable improvements in these indicators. An almostgeneralized improvement is observed in the different indicators of food security analysed inthe countries that make up the sample, reducing the gap between developed and developingcountries. The results obtained in this paper intend to serve as a guide for economic andsocial policies, which aim to improve human development.