2020 Annual trends and outlook report: Sustaining Africa's agrifood system transformation: The role of public policies

Resnick, Danielle; Diao, Xinshen; Tadesse, Getaw

doi:10.2499/9780896293946

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 297 publications

(397 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This trend is removed from our data before our correlation analyses to effectively remove the effect of non-climatic factors. Previous research analyzing the causes of agricultural production growth in SSA argued that production increases have occurred in the past irrespective of rainfall conditions (Resnick et al 2020). An alternative approach using the significance of the relationship between iNDVI and the climate variables precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation to determine whether climate or non-climatic factors drive trends in iNDVI found that our study area experienced a non-climatic browning trend from 2000-2018 (Mechiche-Alami and Abdi 2020).…”

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Hollinger and Staatz (2015) attribute WA's yield growth to increased use of fertilizers and improved varietals. However, Resnick et al (2020) argues that fertilizer use remains low and could be better-targeted to local needs, which limits its impact on yields. Instead, current policy reforms and improved economic governance in the region has allowed the region's production to take advantage of opportune rain and market conditions (Resnick et al 2020).…”

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Resnick et al (2020) argues that fertilizer use remains low and could be better-targeted to local needs, which limits its impact on yields. Instead, current policy reforms and improved economic governance in the region has allowed the region's production to take advantage of opportune rain and market conditions (Resnick et al 2020). Another perspective suggests that maize production is transitioning from being subsistence-driven to market-driven in WA, creating economic incentives that drive yield increases (OECD and Sahel and West Africa Club 2013).…”

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Spatiotemporal monsoon characteristics and maize yields in West Africa

Shiu¹,

Fletcher²,

Entekhabi³

2021

Environ. Res. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To assess the vulnerability of rainfed agriculture in West Africa (WA) to climate change, a detailed understanding of the relationship between food crop yields and seasonal rainfall characteristics is required. The highly seasonal rainfall in the region is expected to change characteristics such as seasonal timing, duration, intensity, and intermittency. The food crop yield response to changes in these characteristics needs greater understanding. We follow a data-driven approach based on historical yield and climate data. Such an approach complements model-based approaches. Previous data-driven studies use spatially and temporally averaged precipitation measures, which do not describe the high degree of spatial and temporal variability of the West African Monsoon (WAM), the primary source of water for agriculture in the region. This has led previous studies to find small or insignificant dependence of crop yields on precipitation amount. Here, we develop metrics that characterize important temporal features and variability in growing season precipitation, including total precipitation, onset and duration of the WAM, and number of non-precipitating days. For each temporal precipitation metric, we apply several unique spatial aggregation functions that allow us to assess how different patterns of high-resolution spatial variability are related to country-level maize yields. We develop correlation analyses between spatiotemporal precipitation metrics and detrended country-level maize yields based on findings that non-climatic factors, such as agricultural policy reform and increased investment, have driven the region’s long-term increase in maize yields. Results show that that the variability in the number of days without rain during the monsoon season and the lower bounds to the spatial rain pattern and end to the monsoon season are most strongly associated with maize yields. Our findings highlight the importance of considering spatial and temporal variability in precipitation when evaluating impacts on crop yields, providing a possible explanation for weak connections found in previous studies.

show abstract

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Non-climatic Factors To Maize Yield Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatiotemporal monsoon characteristics and maize yields in West Africa

Shiu¹,

Fletcher²,

Entekhabi³

2021

Environ. Res. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lastly, unpredictable trade policies like short-term export bans are common 3,23 , reducing incentives for traders to invest in durable trade networks 30 . Accelerated development along the whole food supply chain is needed to improve the competitiveness of agriculture in Africa 5,15 . A first crucial element is agricultural productivity growth, for which especially in Sub-Saharan Africa the potential is huge 2,31 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To inform policy implementation, we therefore assess also the prioritization of individual measures of trade liberalization, facilitation, and development (decomposition of the main scenarios), as well as the prioritization of agricultural investments in certain locations (Connect scenario) or sectors (Food and Export scenario). Prioritization may not only be necessary given constraints on financial resources, but also to harmonize tradeoffs across different policy objectives, for example between food security and environmental impacts 15 . The scenarios results are presented as compared to a baseline that is quantified according to the second Shared Socio-Economic Pathway (SSP2) 55 in which local and international trade costs remain constant and crop yields develop according to historical trends.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A sustainable future for Africa through continental free trade and agricultural development

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Developing and integrating agricultural markets may be key to address Africa's sustainability challenges. By modelling trade costs from farm-gate to potential import markets across eight African regions, we investigate the impact of individual components of continental free trade and the complementary role of domestic agricultural development through increased market access for farmers and agricultural intensification. We find that free trade would increase intra-African agricultural trade six-fold by 2030, butas it does not address local supply constraintsoutside food imports and undernourishment would reduce only marginally. Agricultural development could almost eliminate undernourishment in Africa by 2050, at only a small cost of increased global greenhouse gas emissions. While continental free trade will be enabled in Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area, aligning this with local agricultural development policies will be crucial to increase intra-African trade gains, promote food security and achieve climate objectives. MainAgriculture plays a key role in ensuring a sustainable future for Africa. Currently, about 19% of the African population is undernourished 1 . Despite rapid growth in agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000 2 , food production did not keep up with increasing food demand thereby building up a high dependency on imports from outside Africa 3 . While international imports increase food availability and diet diversity 4 , they also imply risk from global market uncertainty 5 , especially for countries with high food insecurity and volatile export earnings 6 . Further, production growth in the past decades in Africa relied mainly on cropland expansion rather than yield intensification 2 , driving deforestation and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 7 . Future food demand is expected to continue to grow rapidly in Africa as income increases 8 , the total population doubles 9 and the urban population almost triples 10 by 2050. Meeting this demand without increased import dependence or cropland expansion poses a major challenge 11,12 . In this context, the modernization and regional integration of agri-food systems can be key to eliminate hunger, ensure sustainable production growth and induce broader economic transformation in Africa 2,13-15 . In the past decades the modernization of developing countries' food systems lowered food prices and reduced seasonal variation in food supply 16 . Agricultural productivity growth under the Green Revolution in Asia, Latin America and Middle East tripled global crop production, while being land sparing and emission saving 17 . Improved access to domestic and international markets may in theory also reduce pressures on natural resources by relocating agriculture to the most productive areas, though impacts in the past decades have been negative instead due to deforestation and cropland expansion effects [18][19][20] . In Africa, there is still a huge potential to develop domestic agricultural markets and expand internati...

show abstract