ABSTRACT

Improving the wheat yield of countries along the Belt and Road (BR) plays a core role in ensuring global food security. However, little attention has been paid to the wheat yield variation and the determinants across these countries. This paper analyzes wheat yield convergence in countries along the BR using the club-convergence test. The empirical results show that instead of one convergence for all countries along the BR, the wheat yields are converging into three clubs. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of climate change and agricultural production technology on wheat yield convergence, and find that countries along the BR with a one degree Celsius increase in temperature are 36.5% (32.7%) more likely to converge to the high-level yield club. This may be related to the lower frequency of frost and higher photosynthetic capacity of wheat. We also find that a one kilogram increase in fertilizer application per hectare will result in a 0.4% (0.5%) higher probability of countries along the BR converging to the high-level yield club. Countries along the BR should pay more attention to coordinating production technologies and climate change to ensure food security.

摘要

改善“一带一路”沿线国家的小麦产量在确保全球粮食安全方面发挥着核心作用。但是，这些国家的小麦产量变化和决定因素很少引起关注。本文使用俱乐部收敛检验分析了沿BR国家的小麦产量趋同。实证结果表明，沿BR的所有国家都没有收敛，而是将小麦产量汇聚为三个俱乐部。此外，我们调查了气候变化和农业生产技术对小麦单产趋同的影响，发现沿BR气温升高1摄氏度的国家收敛到高水平单产的可能性更高，达到36.5％（32.7％）俱乐部。这可能与较低的霜冻频率和较高的小麦光合能力有关。我们还发现，每公顷肥料施用量增加一公斤，将导致沿BR的国家转向高产俱乐部的可能性提高0.4％（0.5％）。无线电通信局沿线国家应更加重视协调生产技术和气候变化，以确保粮食安全。