**6. A comparison of agricultural investment ratio (AIR) and development flows to agriculture (DFA) between least developed and G20 countries**

Section 5 theoretically demonstrated that even if the capital for handling postharvest crops is increased, reduction of postharvest crops will not be achieved unless local labourers can fully utilise it. In addition, we considered the cases that succeeded the agricultural development support in the developing countries by providing comprehensive support such as training local farmers. However, such successful support is limited to the small number of cases, and many developing countries do not receive effective support. This section presents a comparative investigation of data regarding AIR and DFA to overview agricultural developing support in developing countries around the world.

#### **6.1 A comparison of AIR between least developed and G20 countries**

This subsection comparatively analyses the AIR values in the least developed and G20 countries. The AIR value is calculated by dividing the 'Agriculture Gross Fixed Capital Formation' (Domain code CS, Element code 6110 and Item code 22030 in FAOSTAT) in country *i* at time *t* by 'Agricultural Value Added' (Domain code MK, Element code 6110 and Item code 22016 in FAOSTAT) in country *i* at time *t*. <sup>12</sup> The AIR value indicates how much of the total factor income is reinvested in new fixed assets in the agricultural industry of the respective country [20]. **Table 3** demonstrates the AIR value in the least developed countries in 2018 and 2019.13

<sup>11</sup> Because the situation in Myanmar has changed drastically in recent years, we decided not to refer the agricultural development in Myanmar.

<sup>12</sup> The area and year codes of the variables are not shown because these depend on the countries and years selected. For information on these associated codes, please refer the data source.

<sup>13</sup> Since realisation of outcome from a capital investment takes time, **Table 3** presents the AIR for both 2018 and 2019.


*Challenges and Measures to Recapitalise Handling of Postharvest Crops in Developing… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101222*

### *Postharvest Technology - Recent Advances, New Perspectives and Applications*


#### **Table 3.**

*AIR in the least developed Countries in 2018 and 2019.*

**Table 3** demonstrates that most AIR values in the least developed countries are less than 10%. This low percentage of AIR indicates that a small portion of the total factor income is reinvested in new fixed assets in the agricultural industry of these countries. In addition, since no remarkable increase in the AIR is seen from 2018 to 2019, these countries are likely to continuously record low AIR. This indicates that the agricultural capital in these countries is inadequately structured. There are various possible causes for this situation; for example, in developing countries, various areas other than agriculture (i.e. medical care and education) are underdeveloped and are often prioritised, minimising the amount of funding available for agriculture. **Table 4** presents the AIR in G20 countries in 2018 and 2019.14


<sup>14</sup> The EU is omitted in **Table 4** for the same reason as in **Table 3**. Moreover, due to the data availability, data for China (mainland) is presented, rather than the whole of China.

*Challenges and Measures to Recapitalise Handling of Postharvest Crops in Developing… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101222*


#### **Table 4.**

*AIR in G20 countries in 2018 and 2019.*

The data reported in **Table 4** differs from that of **Table 3**. Specifically, all the AIR values in **Table 4** exceed 10% and some exceed 40%. The G20 countries have strong national power and can invest large sums in agriculture. Moreover, the existing facilities are far more substantial than the least developed countries. Furthermore, many of the AIR values in 2019 do not differ largely from those of 2018, indicating that these countries are constantly recording the high value of AIR.
