A comparative analysis of agricultural and environmental determinants of food availability: implications for sustainable food systems

Nazhat Nury Aspy, Md. Golam Kibria, Youventharan Duraisamy, Jeremy Ko, Mohammad Ridwan, Chun Kai Leung, Wai Kit Ming

Food availability remains a persistent global challenge despite notable progress in recent decades. This article focuses on the availability dimension of food security, proxied by dietary energy supply (DES), rather than on food security in its full multidimensional sense. Because DES captures national-level caloric availability, the analysis does not cover access, utilization, or stability, and it does not measure dietary quality or nutritional adequacy. Within this scope, the study examines how agricultural and environmental factors are associated with food availability in selected food-secure and food-insecure economies during 2000–2021. Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) estimates reveal clear cross-country heterogeneity. Bio-capacity is negatively associated with food availability in food-insecure economies but positively associated with it in food-secure ones, pointing to structural differences in resource use. Emissions from energy use in agriculture and livestock production are significantly associated with food availability in food-insecure countries, while the land–labor ratio is positively associated with it in both panels. By contrast, cereal production is negatively associated with food availability in both groups, indicating that higher staple output does not automatically translate into greater dietary energy supply. Driscoll–Kraay and System GMM estimates confirm the stability of the main results. The findings highlight the importance of cleaner agricultural technologies, more efficient land use, stronger post-harvest and distribution systems, and context-specific strategies for sustainable food-system management.