Investigating the Role and Effect of Governance Indicators on Non-renewable Energy Consumption in the Agricultural Sector of Low-income Countries

The as one of the important sectors in the economy, the agricultural sector plays important roles such as providing food security and helping the market of production factors, and is considered one of the energy consumers. So that today, the production of the agricultural sector and the advancement of the technologies used in this sector have become so dependent on different types of energy that the energy consumption in this sector has an increasing trend in four decades. One of the factors affecting the consumption behavior of economic actors in the field of energy is its governance and efficiency, so that with the right policies and their strict implementation, it can affect the change or modification of energy consumption behavior. Therefore, in this study, the factors affecting the energy used (diesel oil) in the agricultural sector have been investigated, emphasizing the role of governance in 22 countries with lower middle income.

The Tobit panel model has been used to estimate the model. The information of this study was collected from the World Food website and the World Bank for the period from 1996 to 2018.

The results of Tobit's panel model estimation showed that except for the corruption control index, the remaining governance indicators (political stability, the right to comment and accountability, and the rule of law) have a negative effect on diesel consumption in the agricultural sector. by increasing the score of each of the indicators of the right to comment and answer, political stability, rule of law and control of corruption by one percent, the amount of energy consumed in the agricultural sector in the studied countries changes by -1/21, -0/06, -1/63 and 2.33 percent. In contrast to domestic investment variables, the share of the agricultural sector in the economy and the growth of the agricultural sector have a positive effect on the use of renewable energy.

According to the research findings the, suggestions such as improving the governance situation in the investigated countries, expanding the volume of trade and developing smart systems in order to increase the share of clean energy and reduce the share of diesel in the energy consumption portfolio are recommended. Also, the comparison of the final effect of governance indicators shows that corruption control has a greater effect than other governance indicators. So it is recommended to take effective measures to control corruption, especially environmental issues and the expansion of clean energy consumption.