Abstract
Introduction
Ensuring food security and increasing water-use efficiency have become strategic priorities for Saudi Arabia due to water scarcity, climate change, and rising food demand. Artificial intelligence (AI) advances significant opportunities to improve agricultural productivity and resource management; however, empirical evidence on its dynamic relationship with food security and water-use efficiency remains limited.
Methods
This study investigates the dynamic relationships among Information and Communication Technology (ICT) goods imports as an indirect proxy for AI adoption, food security, and water-use efficiency for various purposes in Saudi Arabia, utilizing annual data from 2000 to 2023. The analysis employs a Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework alongside Granger causality tests, impulse response functions (IRFs), forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD), and historical decomposition (HD).
Results
The results reveal that ICT goods imports, as an indirect proxy for AI adoption, significantly influence food security and industrial water-use efficiency; likewise, agricultural and service-sector water-use efficiency, in turn, promote AI adoption. The IRF results indicate that positive AI shocks improve food security and industrial water-use efficiency in the short run. However, the FEVD results show that the agricultural and service sectors will become increasingly significant factors in long-term food security. The HD outcomes support the robustness of the study results.
Conclusion
The study concludes that integrating AI technologies with sustainable water management can boost food security and Structural enhance resource efficiency. These outcomes provide valuable policy insights for advancing Saudi Vision 2030 through AI-driven agricultural innovation and sustainable water resource management. The study contributes to the literature by integrating ICT goods imports, as an indirect proxy for AI adoption, food security, and sector-specific water-use efficiency into a dynamic framework, providing new evidence on the potential role of digital technology diffusion in enhancing food security through improved water-use efficiency.