Will African Agriculture Survive Climate Change?

Kurukulasuriya, Pradeep; Mendelsohn, Robert; Hassan, Rashid M.; Benhin, James; Deressa, Temesgen; Diop, Mbaye; Eid, Helmy Mohamed; Fosu, K.Y.; Gbetibouo, Glwadys Aymone; Jain, Suman; Mahamadou, Ali; Mano, Reneth; Kabubo-Mariara, Jane; El-Marsafawy, Samia M.; Molua, Ernest L.; Ouda, Samiha; Ouédraogo, Mathieu; Séne, Isidor; Maddison, David; Seo, S. Niggol; Dinar, Ariel

doi:10.1093/wber/lhl004

Cited by 408 publications

(322 citation statements)

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“…This is done by excluding Egypt from the analyses since Egypt contributes 60% of the irrigation cropping in the sample of all countries and its agriculture relies entirely on irrigation under a relatively cooler climate and therefore considered the first suspect for biasing temperature effects on irrigated crop farming in Africa. This proved to be true as results excluding Egypt suggest that warming is harmful to crop farming both under dryland and irrigation conditions (Kurukulasuriya et al, 2006). As expected however, higher rainfall is beneficial to crop agriculture in Africa under both drayland and irrigated systems.…”

Section: Results Of the Economic Impacts' Analysesmentioning

confidence: 61%

Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Sector Performance in Africa: Policy Challenges and Research Agenda

Hassan

2010

Journal of African Economies

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The paper analyzed how climate change (CC) has shaped African agriculture in the past and how it might impact on African farm economies in the future and what adaptation strategies African farmers have adopted to cope with these changes. The analyses covered all key farming systems and agro-climates of Africa in 11 countries in which data was collected from over 10,000 farm household surveys. Results provided evidence that African agriculture and the welfare of its rural population are vulnerable to CC. The highest risk of future CC damages is associated with specialized crop and livestock farming (mono systems) particularly under dryland conditions in arid and semi-arid regions. This indicates how difficult it is to achieve an African green revolution under the current high reliance on dryland systems (more than 95% of the land) given predicted harsh future climates (warmer and dryer projections) for most of the dryland areas in PreambleNo doubt our level of awareness and understanding of the climate change (CC) phenomena and their impacts on our planet earth and its inhabitants have significantly improved over the past two decades. There has also been growing attention to and concerns about the consequences of climate change among almost all governments in the world. We remain however with some key uncertainties and gaps of knowledge associated with the complex dynamics between CC, its anthropogenic (human activity) drivers and life on earth including human wellbeing presenting major challenges to present day science and policy making. This is particularly the case in developing countries where efforts and investment levels in scientific research and action programs to better understand and respond to CC continue to be low and the capacity to survive CC vagaries and take advantage of its potential benefits remains consequently very weak.Africa and especially its farming communities and rural population stand out as one clear case of very high vulnerability to CC and its variance.The Synthesis Report of the forth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explains how hard it is to find evidence of negative consequences of CC on the world agricultural productivity in aggregate agricultural statistics. One reason is the positive gains from global warming observed in the temperate regions (e.g. North America and Europe) due to reduced risk of frost and longer growing season duration.The other important reason is the fact that world agriculture in general but particularly in temperate regions had witnessed noticeable increases in productivity of most crops as a result of major technological advances (breeding and improved fertility and pest and disease management) (IPCC, 2007 (IPCC, 2007a). This is due to the fact that African economies and the livelihoods of its population are highly dependant on agriculture which is mainly practiced in already harsh climatic conditions (e.g. high temperature, marginal environments, and considerable water stress). It is also important to note tha...

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Section: Results Of the Economic Impacts' Analysesmentioning

confidence: 61%

Implications of Climate Change for Agricultural Sector Performance in Africa: Policy Challenges and Research Agenda

Hassan

2010

Journal of African Economies

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“…Thus, the livelihoods of many low-income households are likely to suffer from declining food production (Jones and Thornton 2009). Adaptation is an urgent priority for farm households to reduce the negative effects of climate change, and effective policies are needed to support farm households to adapt (Kurukulasuriya et al 2006).…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Ng’ang’a

Wijk

Rufino³

2016

Reg Environ Change

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Livestock production is very risky due to climate variability in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data collected from 400 households in the Borena zone of the Oromia Region, we explored what drives adoption of agricultural practices that can decrease the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists to climate change. Households with more adaptive capacity adopted a larger number of practices. The households' adaptive capacity was stronger when the quality of local institutions was high. However, adaptive capacity had less explanatory power in explaining adoption of adaptation options than household socio-economic characteristics, suggesting that aggregating information into one indicator of adaptive capacity for site-specific studies may not help to explain the adoption behaviour of households. Strong local institutions lead to changes in key household-level characteristics (like membership to community groups, years lived in a village, access to credit, financial savings and crop income) which positively affect adoption of agricultural practices. In addition, better local institutions were also positively related to adoption of livestock-related adaptation practices. Poor access to a tarmac road was positively related to intensification and diversification of crop production, whereas it was negatively related to the intensification of livestock production, an important activity for generating cash in the region. Our findings suggest that better local institutions lead to changes in household characteristics, which positively affect adoption of adaptation practices, suggesting that policies should aim to strengthen local institutions.

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“…(2000) ; Kurukulasuriya and al., (2006) Dynamic models vs. static models They consider, on the one hand, climate change and, on the other hand, the country's socio-economic changes Dynamic models are a closer representation of the evolution of the real world This dynamics allows consideration of the countries' adaptation capacity and relative assessment of the adverse impact of climate change Such a dynamics may be found in the IA models …”

Section: «Ricardian » Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%