Subsistence Farming and Food Security in Cameroon: A Macroeconomic Approach

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the development of subsistence agriculture is the best way to assure food security in developing countries. The objective of this study fits into this logic in that it analyzes the impact of subsistence farming to food security in Cameroon. Data from the FAO and the World Bank over the period 1961-2007 were used to formulate a cointegration model between food availability and subsistence framing index based on the ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) procedure. Firstly, the analysis shows that the long-run elasticity of subsistence farming index is 0.38, higher than in short-run (0.27). This result confirms the positive impact of subsistence farming on food security in short-run and long-run. Secondly, the trend is significant and positive, meaning that structural variables such as market functioning, the development of road and market infrastructures etc., positively impact on food security in Cameroon. However, population growth reduces food availability, a factor that could obscure the positive impact of subsistence farming. Therefore it would be necessary to consider a scenario in which the subsistence farming growth rate is higher than the population growth rate.