The Potential Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture in West Africa: A Bio-Economic Modeling Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on agriculture in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). To that end, a bio-economic model is built and calibrated on 2004 base year dataset and the potential impact is evaluated on land use and crop production under two representative concentration pathways coupled with three socio-economic scenarios. The findings suggest that land use change may depend on crop types and prevailing future conditions. As of crop production, the results show that paddy rice, oilseeds, sugarcane, cocoa, coffee, and sesame production could experience a decline under both moderate and harsh climate conditions in most cases. Also, doubling crop yields by 2050 could overall mitigate the negative impact of moderate climate change. The magnitude and the direction of the impacts may vary in space and time.

Climate change and agriculture in Burkina Faso

“…Most of the selected papers deal with crop production, while animal production (7 documents out of 217) and, especially, fisheries (1 document) are overlooked (see, Supplementary Material -Appendix 2). As for crop production (82 documents out of 217), the majority of articles addresses climate change mitigation and/or adaptation in relation to staple crops -such as cassava (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019;Egbebiyi, Lennard, et al, 2019;Jarvis et al, 2012;, maize Nelimor et al, 2019;Parkes et al, 2018;, millet (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019;Faye et al, 2018;Pironon et al, 2019;Sultan et al, 2013;Sultan, Defrance, et al, 2019), rice (Kima et al, 2014;van Oort & Zwart, 2018;, sesame (Lokonon et al, 2019), sorghum (Akinseye et al, 2020; Hadebe et al, 2017;Sultan et al, 2014;Sultan, Defrance, et al, 2019;vom Brocke et al, 2014), and yam (Pironon et al, 2019) -or cash crops such as cotton (Bostick et al, 2007;Ingram et al, 2002;Zorom et al, 2010), mango (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019), sugarcane (Lokonon et al, 2019) and groundnuts (Hoffman et al, 2018;Schlenker & Lobell, 2010). Most of the selected documents deal with 'rural agriculture', while urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) is marginal (Nkrumah, 2019…”

“…Indeed, Zougmore et al (2018) suggest that "[…] without appropriate interventions, climate change and variability will affect agricultural yields, food security and add to the presently unacceptable levels of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa". Some papers analyse the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and yields (Lokonon et al, 2019;Serpantié et al, 2019;Sultan, Defrance, et al, 2019). Analyses regard different crops such as cassava (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019;Egbebiyi, Lennard, et al, 2019;Jarvis et al, 2012;, maize (Kamali et al, 2018(Kamali et al, , 2019Nelimor et al, 2019;Parkes et al, 2018;Ugbaje et al, 2019), mango (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019), millet (Egbebiyi, Crespo, et al, 2019 Sultan and Gaetani (2016) highlight that "a robust evidence of yield loss in West Africa emerges.…”

“…Evidence shows that the impacts of climate change (CC) will be high in Sub-Saharan Africa (Baarsch et al, 2020;Bakshi et al, 2019;Bornemann et al, 2019;Hassan, 2010;Lokonon et al, 2019). Changes in climate will affect both temperatures (Faye et al, 2018;Issahaku et al, 2016;Thornton et al, 2011;Waha, Müller, & Rolinski, 2013) and precipitation (Ayanlade et al, 2018;Le Houérou, 1996;Waha, Müller, & Rolinski, 2013).…”

“…Changes in climate will affect both temperatures (Faye et al, 2018;Issahaku et al, 2016;Thornton et al, 2011;Waha, Müller, & Rolinski, 2013) and precipitation (Ayanlade et al, 2018;Le Houérou, 1996;Waha, Müller, & Rolinski, 2013). Furthermore, as the primary sector still plays an important socio-economic role in the region, climate change will even affect the socio-economic development of these countries Arndt et al, 2011;Baarsch et al, 2020;Boubacar, 2015;Calzadilla et al, 2013;England et al, 2018;Lokonon et al, 2019;Montaud et al, 2017;Schlenker & Lobell, 2010;Serdeczny et al, 2017). Indeed, agriculture contributes to the population's food security, and is an important source of income and livelihoods, especially in the rural areas, and a significant contributor to the national gross domestic product El Bilali (GDP) thanks to agricultural exports (Diao et al, 2007;FAO & OECD, 2015).…”

“…Agriculture in SSA, which is predominantly rain-fed, is highly vulnerable to climate fluctuations and droughts (Abdulai, 2018;Adhikari et al, 2015;Barrios et al, 2008;Cooper et al, 2008;Haile et al, 2018;Kahsay & Hansen, 2016;Lokonon et al, 2019;Muchuru & Nhamo, 2019;Müller, 2013;Muller et al, 2011;Pironon et al, 2019;Rippke et al, 2016;Schlenker & Lobell, 2010;Sidibé et al, 2018;Sonwa et al, 2017;Webersik & Wilson, 2009). Webersik and Wilson (2009) put that "African economies are closely linked to natural resources and rely heavily on agriculture, largely rain fed […].…”