Investigating the effects of price and livestock production shocks on food security

In recent years, fluctuations in the livestock products market have caused dissatisfaction among all groups in society.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the food security of different urban and rural income groups due to production, price and income shocks of livestock products in the form of a multi market equilibrium model. The required information was extracted from raw cost and income data of urban and rural households during the years 2008 to 2018 of the Statistics Center of Iran.

The results of the study showed that the food security of the community is more affected by the price shock of livestock products. Among the various urban and rural income groups, poor rural households will suffer the most from rising commodity prices. With a 30 percent increase in the price of livestock products, the average caloric intake of poor rural households will decrease by about 51 percent, which indicates that livestock products are not essential goods for poor households.

Eventually, the results show that the negative effects of rising livestock prices on food security will be somewhat mitigated by a 17% increase in household incomes assuming other food prices remain stable, but the worrying food security situation of poor rural households will remain strong. Therefore, to provide the calories needed by the most vulnerable sections of society to production and price shocks, the same nominal increase in the nominal income of this group of households in accordance with other sections of society is not enough and it is necessary to consider different scenarios of granting supportive food baskets and increasing income more including nominal than other household groups.