A Classification of Country Types with respect to Food and Energy Self-Sufficiency Rates by Using Cluster Analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study is to classify and to investigate transition paths of 115 countries in the world with respect to food and energy self-sufficiency rates as well as their growth patterns. This study focuses on food and energy self-sufficiency rates and major economic variables (e.g., consumer price index, education) of the selected countries. Cluster analysis is used to classify country types and transition paths of food and energy self-sufficiency rates. We identify the following 5 groups: “High energy self-sufficiency countries”, “High economic fluctuation countries”, “Low productivity countries”, “High productivity countries with low food and energy self-sufficiency”, and “High productivity countries with high food self-sufficiency”. It was concluded that the type 2 group (= high economic fluctuation) contained most of the high food self-sufficiency countries from 1971 to 1990. However, the characteristics of the type 2 group changed into high energy self-sufficiency countries from 1991 to 2011. Also, the results identify that the food security is getting worse compared to the energy security.