Incentives in Agricultural Production as a Way to Improve Food Security: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis for Serbia

As a form of institutional financial government, incentives reflect economic actors’ needs and can be used in various industries. In agricultural production, incentives are significant in developing countries, where agriculture generates a considerable portion of the gross domestic product (GDP) and contributes to economic development. As the food security concept is integrated into strategic documents in most countries, this study focuses on the theoretical and empirical analysis of agriculture incentives and their role in meeting food security targets. The incentives-agriculture relationship is illustrated by an example of the Republic of Serbia, an upper-middle-income economy, according to World Bank’s classification. The authors aim at evaluating the effects of incentives on agriculture in a broad context of the national agrarian policy. The study contributes to the body of research on agricultural economics in Serbia by narrowing the gap in existing knowledge about the role of incentives in improving the country’s food security status. The issues of incentives and food security are for the first time unveiled in relation to each other on the example of one country.