Investigating the Impact of Agricultural Mechanization on the Food Security of Rural Families In Iran

Since the agriculture sector is the largest custodian of the food supply, food production and food security, there is a need to increase the production in this sector which is subject to technology and mechanization level. Therefore, the purpose of this study aims to investigate the effect of agricultural mechanization coefficient on the food security of Iranian rural families in the period 1984-2013 using auto-regressive distributed lag method (ARDL). The results show that the mechanization coefficient and per capita income variables had a positive impact on the food security of rural families in the long term, while the food price index variable had a negative impact on the food security of rural families in the long term. Hence, it is suggested that the government should support the importers of agricultural machinery against currency exchange rate fluctuations. Also, the use of technology is difficult due to the small and scattered farms in Iran. Therefore, localization and promotion of the capital-intensive technologies is proposed.