Income and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trade-offs on smallholder farms at two sites in northern Nigeria

Abstract

This study analyses the trade-offs between welfare (measured by income) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using a farm-level optimisation model that incorporates the predominant cereal (sorghum), legumes (groundnut, soybeans), livestock (cattle, goats and sheep) and trees (locust bean, camel’s foot) representative of production systems at two contrasting sites in northern Nigeria. The optimisation model maximises the value of total farm production, subject to constraints on GHG reductions of 10%, 25% and the maximum reductions that allow households to meet minimum consumption requirements. Substantive reductions in livestock and legume production would be required to achieve the maximum possible reductions from current emissions and would reduce household income by 22% and 44%, respectively. Under current production practices, reductions in GHG emissions reduce household income, which suggests the need for further research on productivity-enhancing technologies that could both enhance income and reduce GHG emissions in these production contexts.

Multiple-year farm-level assessments of trade-offs between GHG emissions and income: case examples of two farming systems in Northern Nigeria

“…Previous research (Ayinde et al, 2020) examined the farm-level impacts of restrictions on GHG emissions for two types of farms in Northern Nigeria using a farm-level optimization model. In analyses for a single year (2015), we found that limits on GHG emissions would reduce farm household income and modify production patterns, land use and input purchases.…”

“…The main objective of this paper is to assess the impacts of inter-annual variation in input costs, input use, output prices and product yields on the trade-offs between farm income and GHG emissions. Similar to Ayinde et al, (2020) we analyse these trade-offs for two production systems in Nigeria that incorporate trees, grain and legume crops, and multiple livestock species. We compare the impacts of GHG restrictions for ve production cycles from 2015/16 to 2019/2020.…”