Introduction: Food security means everyone's access to sufficient, healthy, and nutritious food. In rural areas, livelihood and economy are based on agriculture and food production, so the importance of food security becomes twofold. Providing food security for society is one of the major goals of socio-economic planning, and malnutrition is considered an inhibiting force in the process of national development. Measuring food security scientifically is a calculated method to solve food and nutrition problems and a defined framework for development planning and management. Various methods have been used to estimate the food security situation, one of these methods is the use of Engel buffer index. In this method, the ratio of non-food expenses to total household expenses (food expenses plus non-food expenses) is calculated and used as an index of food security. The larger the value of this ratio is, it is a sign that the household has a better food security situation. In addition to measuring the food security situation, one of the important issues in this regard is the estimation of factors affecting the value of the food security index. Considering the importance of these two issues, this research was carried out with two main goals, including measuring the food security situation in rural areas of Iran using the Engel index and investigating the factors affecting the value of this index.
Methods and Materials: The necessary data for this research are secondary data extracted from the statistical yearbooks of Statistical Center Iran (SCI). To estimate the Engel index, the ratio of food expenses to the total expenses of rural households between 1974 and 2022 was calculated. To achieve the goals of the research and to investigate the factors affecting food security during the concerned period, based on the review of sources, a set of accessible variables was selected within Equation (1) as follows:
BEt = ꞵ0 + ꞵ1LnFD + ꞵ2LnGDPPC + ꞵ3LnIMPORT + ꞵ4INFR + ꞵ5DUMMY        (1)
In Equation (1), BE is the Buffer Engel as the food security index of rural areas, FD is the Financial Development index, GDPPC is the Gross Domestic Product Per Capita, IMPORT is the IMPORT of the agricultural sector, INFR is the INFlation Rate and DUMMY is the dummy variable of the Iran-Iraq war. EViews10 and Excel software were used to achieve the research objectives and evaluate the relationship between the Buffer Engel and the influencing variables using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method.
Results and Discussion: Buffer Engel index ranged from (minimum) 44 to (maximum) 62.98 percent. The value of this index is between 0 and 100, the larger it means that a larger share of household expenses is spent on non-food expenses; therefore, in case of food security problems such as rapid increases in the price of food items, rural households can divert their non-food expenses to the food items and as a result, food security increases; from 1985, due to the problems and consequences of the war with the neighboring country until 1988, the Buffer Engel decreased; then, from that year onwards, with the end of the war, an upward trend is observed until 2009 and from 2010 to 2013, due to political problems and increased sanctions, we have seen that the Buffer Engel index has decreased again. Increasing the financial development index improves and enhances the food security of rural households. GDP per capita had a significantly positive effect on the Buffer Engel index. It showed that with the increase in per capita income, the purchasing power of the rural community increased the access to food in rural areas. The study results indicated a significantly positive impact of imports on food security in rural areas. In addition, the results of the estimated model showed a significantly negative impact of the inflation rate on food security in rural areas. Finally, the variable of war had a significantly negative impact on food security in rural areas during 1980-1988.
Conclusion and Suggestions: Conducting food security studies in rural areas, especially at the national level, is very challenging and comes with special difficulties. Despite this, it is very necessary to conduct such studies to make policies about food security and the rural economy. In this study, the results were consistent with the existing theories about food security. Based on the obtained results, it is suggested that the necessary policies are designed and implemented for financial development of rural areas, rapid economic growth, inflation control, prevention of political and military tensions, and facilitation of imports in certain cases where the price of consumer goods have increased sharply and the production of these goods might not be possible in the country in the short term.