ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1616468
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Food Consumption and Production in the 21st Century: Volume IIView all 16 articles
Role of Productive Capacities on Agricultural Productivity in BRI Countries
Provisionally accepted
- 1Division of Science and Technology, University of Education Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan
- 2Department of Economics, Division of Management and Administrative Science, University of Education, Lahore, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
- 3Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- 4Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States
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Agricultural productivity is a cornerstone of food security, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development. While traditional determinants such as land, labor, credit, and water have been widely studied, the broader role of national productive capacities remains underexplored, particularly in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This study investigates the impact of productive capacities on agricultural productivity in 42 BRI countries from 2000 to 2024, using the Productive Capacities Index (PCI) alongside conventional inputs. The study employed the system GMM and 2SLS econometric techniques and then employed other econometric techniques such as Driscoll-Kraay, Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), and Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) to check the robustness of the results. It is found that higher productive capacities significantly enhance agricultural productivity, while access to credit, land expansion, and water availability also play critical roles. Labor contributions, however, show mixed effects, suggesting inefficiencies in labor-intensive farming systems. By integrating PCI, this study provides a novel, cross-sectoral perspective on agricultural development. The findings underscore the importance of strengthening infrastructure, technology, institutions, and human capital within the BRI framework to foster sustainable agricultural growth and regional food security.
Keywords: Productive capacities, agricultural productivity, BRI countries, GMM, 2SLS
Received: 22 Apr 2025; Accepted: 09 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mustafa, NAEEM, Madni, Alhafi Alotaibi and Nayak. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ghulam Mustafa, ghulam.mustafa@ue.edu.pk
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