Food security performance assessment of the US states: a DEA-based Malmquist productivity index approach

The national trend in food security has been declining and a state-by-state analysis considering social and macro-economic characteristics of the holistic food security assessment problem has not been addressed in the literature or organisational reports. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of socio-economic input parameters on maximising the food security and evaluate the relative efficiency trend in food security performance of the US states over a 13-year study period. To do so, eight socio-economic input categories and the single output, food security rate, were aggregated into a single food security performance with the proposed DEA-based Malmquist Index approach for the period between 2003 and 2015. Majority of the US states' social and macro-economic parameters have been improving during the study period, whereas effective policy making towards zeroing food insecurity still remains as a big question mark.