EFFECTS OF SELECTED MACROECONOMIC FACTORS ON KENYA’S MAIZE PRODUCTION FOR FOOD SECURITY

Abstract

Food security was emphasized at the meeting as “freedom from want “in terms of the availability and supply of food. United Nation applied a global proclamation in 1975 that proclaim everyone unalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition. The kilo-calorie supply of maize has continuously decreased despite its dominance in providing food security and the observed development in a number of supply- and demand-side factors that affect food security. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of selected macroeconomic factors on Kenyan’s maize production for food security. These objectives were actualized through determining the effect of inflation on Kenyan’s maize production for food security, establishing the effect of unemployment on Kenyan’s maize production for food security, and examining the effect of Gross domestic product on Kenyan’s maize production for food security. Sen’s entitlement theory, food availability decline theory and Malthusian theory of population would be instrumental in guiding this study in examining how the selected macroeconomic factors affect maize production for food security in Kenya. Using a causal research design with time series data obtained from databases of World Development Indicators ,world bank website and Food and Agriculture Organization from 1990-2022 the study employed EVIEWS software version 10 for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis to achieve research objectives. This helped establish the relationship between the macroeconomic factors and Maize production (quantity) in Kenya. At level, the Augmented Dickey Fuller and Phillips-perron unit test root showed the presence the presence of unit root for maize production and unemployment and but at first difference ,the time series data was stationary. The variance inflation factor (VIF) test values were less than 10 showing no Multicollinearity. The study employed descriptive and inferential statistics. Jarque–Bera test revealed a normal distribution of the series at 5percent level of significance where the p-value 0.7942>0.05. F Bounds test revealed no integration among variables. Breusch-Godfrey Autocorrelation test revealed absence of serial correlation with a p-value 0.0565>0.05. Breusch-Pagan –Godfrey test for heteroscedasticity had probability 0.064>0.05 showing that there is no problem of heteroscedasticity. The study also revealed that Gross Domestic Product has a positive and a significant relationship on maize production for food security. with a co-efficient of 0.1367 and a p-value of 0.0001<0.05 and Inflation and unemployment has a negative and significant relationship on Maize production for food security with a coefficient -0.1531 and -0.2618 and p-value of 0.0002<0.05 and 0.0036<0.05.The measure of goodness of fit R-squared was 0.5883 showed that the variance in regressor predicted 58.8279%of variance in the dependent variable. From the study the government of Kenya needs to attract more National income directed to maize production sector and there is a great need to reduce the inflation rates and unemployment levels since they negatively affects the maize production for food security in Kenya.