Dynamics of Global Agricultural Productivity and Democratic Governance Structure: Implications for Sustainable Food Supply

Good governance leads to economic growth although most countries of the world lack it. Little attention had been given to isolate the effect of the governance system on agricultural productivity which necessitate this research. This research is a global study on the relationship between regime type and agricultural productivity drawing data from three main sources. A total of 14 models and scenarios were estimated to isolate the continents and or regime types that could exacerbate or enhance global Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The results indicates that full democracy is practised in about 10% of the countries. TFP is highest in most countries that practice full democracy (FD) while it was lowest in countries under authoritarian regimes. From the results of the estimation of all the models, only agriculture contribution to GDP had about .45% impact on TFP over the period of this data. However, it would appear that changes to TFP is more likely to occur in countries within continents rather than in countries practising similar regime type. In terms of which regime or continent caused the greatest variability; Asia is on top of the continents while authoritarian regimes are on top of the regime type. The study recommends the institution of political reforms in countries operating imperfect democratic regimes to enhance investment in agricultural R D especially in Africa, Asia and CIS. In addition, countries not practicing FD should work towards improving their TFP by at least 50% of the current level and translate the free resources to other sectors.