Frontiers of Agriculture and Food Technology

Frontiers of Agriculture and Food Technology Vol. 2 (7), pp. 225-237, July, 2014.  © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Food insecurity, land scale and Agricultural Income in Pakistan

Shazadi Rasheed

Department of Economics, University of the punjab, P.O. Box. No. 54000, Lahore 54890, Pakistan.

Email: [email protected]

Accepted 25 June, 2014

Abstract 

Hundred rural-based households (50 landowners and Sharecroppers each) were interviewed regarding income-consumption in relation with land-size, household-size and debt through ANCOVA model. The Marginal Propensity to Consume (MPC) was greater than one (MPC>1) while, intercept found negative (C<0) describes the serious gap in income and expenditures leading to negative savings produces the debt on respondent. We also found that, the income from agricultural is not capable to compensate the food expenditure. The debt and food insecurity are positivity linked and at least and on average, 4-acre land required meeting 8000 PKR/per-month equivalent to minimum wage for Landowner and 8-acre for Sharecroppers.

Key words: Agricultural income, land size, food insecurity, debt, food expenditures, marginal propensity to consume (MPC)