Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:13:48.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The impact of climate change on agricultural net revenue: a case study in the Fouta Djallon, West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2014

Stephen A. Wood  and
Robert O. Mendelsohn
Stephen A. Wood
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York 10027, NY; and Agriculture and Food Security Center, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York 10964, NY, USA. Tel: 781 771-3495. Fax: 212 854-8188. E-mail: [email protected]
Robert O. Mendelsohn
Affiliation:
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Continental-scale economic analysis suggests that changes in climate conditions are associated with lower agricultural net revenue in sub-Saharan Africa. Specific locations, however, may not reflect this overall trend due to variation in baseline climate, soils, and socioeconomic factors that are difficult to model at large scales. The economic effect of changes in climate conditions on agricultural revenue in particular places in sub-Saharan Africa remains largely unknown. To test this effect, we study an area of West Africa with high climate variation over a small geographic area. We find that higher temperatures and precipitation lower agricultural revenues in the more important rainy season but increase revenues in the less important cool, dry season.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 20 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrera-Bassols, N. and Zinck, J. (2003), ‘Ethnopedology: a worldwide view on the soil knowledge of local people’, Geoderma 111: 171–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basist, A., Grody, N., Peterson, T., and Williams, C. (2001), ‘Using the special sensor microwave imager to monitor surface wetness’, Journal of Hydrometeorology 2(3): 297–308.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butt, T.A., McCarl, B.A., Angerer, J., Dyke, P.T., and Stuth, J.W. (2005), ‘The economic and food security implications of climate change in Mali’, Climatic Change 68(3): 355–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deressa, T., Hassan, R., and Poonyth, D. (2005), ‘Measuring the impact of climate change on South African agriculture: the case of sugar-cane growing regions’, Agrekon 44(4): 524–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Salvo, M., Raffaelli, R., and Moser, R. (2013), ‘The impact of climate change on permanent crops in an Alpine region: a Ricardian analysis’, Agricultural Systems 118: 23–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschênes, O. and Greenstone, M. (2011), ‘Climate change, mortality, and adaptation: evidence from annual fluctuations in weather in the US’, American Economic Journal 3(4): 152–185.Google Scholar
ESRI (2011), ArcGIS Desktop: Release 10, Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute.Google Scholar
Fleischer, A., Lichtman, I., and Mendelsohn, R.O. (2008), ‘Climate change, irrigation, and Israeli agriculture: will warming be harmful?’, Ecological Economics 65(3): 508–515.Google Scholar
Franke, R.W. and Chasin, B.H. (1980), Seeds of Famine: Ecological Destruction and the Development Dilemma in the West African Sahel, Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.Google Scholar
Gbetibouo, G.A. and Hassan, R.M. (2005), ‘Measuring the economic impact of climate change on major South African field crops: a Ricardian approach’, Global and Planetary Change 47(2–4): 143–152.Google Scholar
Gourdji, S.M., Mathews, K.L., Reynolds, M., Crossa, J., and Lobell, D.B. (2013), ‘An assessment of wheat yield sensitivity and breeding gains in hot environments’, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1752).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillers, A., Loua, N.S., and Rödel, M.O. (2008), ‘A preliminary assessment of the amphibians of the Fouta Djallon’, Salamandra 44: 113–122.Google Scholar
Kamara, S., Kuruppuarachchi, T., Ranatunge, E., Hayashi, Y., Yokozawa, M., Nishimori, M., and Mikami, T. (2002), ‘Multivariate statistical analysis of the seasonal rainfall regimes of the Guinea-Fouta Djallon Mountains of West Africa’, Journal of Agricultural Meteorology 58(4): 171–184.Google Scholar
Kurukulasuriya, P. and Ajwad, M.I. (2007), ‘Application of the Ricardian technique to estimate the impact of climate change on smallholder farming in Sri Lanka’, Climatic Change 81(1): 39–59.Google Scholar
Kurukulasuriya, P., Mendelsohn, R.O., Hassan, R., et al. (2006), ‘Will African agriculture survive climate change?’, World Bank Economic Review 20(3): 367–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebbie, A. (2001), ‘Guinean montane forests’, [Available at] http://wwf.panda.org/ about_our_earth/ecoregions/guinean_moist_forests.cfm.Google Scholar
Lobell, D.B. and Field, C.B. (2007), ‘Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming’, Environmental Research Letters 2(1): 014002.Google Scholar
Lobell, D.B., Banziger, M., Magorokosho, C., and Vivek, B. (2011a), ‘Nonlinear heat effects on African maize as evidenced by historical yield trials’, Nature Climate Change 1: 42–45.Google Scholar
Lobell, D.B., Schlenker, W., and Costa-Roberts, J. (2011b), ‘Climate trends and global crop production since 1980’, Science 333(6042): 616–620.Google Scholar
Maley, J. (1987), ‘Fragmentation de la forêt dense humide africaine et extension des biotopes montagnards ou Quartenaire récent: nouvelles données polliniques et chronologiques. Implications paléoclimatiques et biogéographiques’, Palaeoecology of Africa 18: 307–334.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R.O. and Dinar, A. (1999), ‘Climate change, agriculture, and developing countries: does adaptation matter?’, World Bank Research Observer 14(2): 277–293.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R.O. and Neumann, J.E. (2004), The Impacts of Climate Change on the United States Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R.O., Nordhaus, W.D., and Shaw, D. (1994), ‘The impact of global warming on agriculture – a Ricardian analysis’, American Economic Review 84(4): 753–771.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R.O., Dinar, A., and Williams, L. (2006), ‘The distributional impact of climate change on rich and poor countries’, Environment and Development Economics 11(2): 159–178.Google Scholar
Molua, E.L. (2008), ‘Turning up the heat on African agriculture: the impact of climate change on Cameroon's agriculture’, African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2: 45–64.Google Scholar
Molua, E.L. (2009), ‘An empirical assessment of the impact of climate change on smallholder agriculture in Cameroon’, Global and Planetary Change 67(3–4): 205–208.Google Scholar
Morton, J. (1986), ‘Montane vegetation’, in Lawson, G. (ed.), Plant Ecology in West Africa, Chichester: John Wiley, p. 357.Google Scholar
Porembski, S., Barthlott, W., Dörrstock, S., and Biedinger, N. (1994), ‘Vegetation of rock outcrops in Guinea: granite inselbergs, sandstone table mountains, and ferricretes – remarks on species numbers and endemism’, Flora 189: 315–326.Google Scholar
Reilly, J., Tubiello, F., McCarl, B., et al. . (2003), ‘U.S. agriculture and climate change: new results’, Climatic Change 57(1–2): 43–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlenker, W., Hanemann, W.M., and Fisher, A.C. (2005), ‘Will U.S. agriculture really benefit from global warming? Accounting for irrigation in the hedonic approach’, American Economic Review 95: 395–406.Google Scholar
Schnell, R. (1968), ‘Guinée’, in Hedberg, I. and Hedberg, O. (eds), Conservation of Vegetation in Africa South of the Sahara, Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, pp. 69–71.Google Scholar
Seo, S.N. and Mendelsohn, R.O. (2008), ‘A Ricardian analysis of the impact of climate change on South American farms’, Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research 68(1): 69–79.Google Scholar
Seo, S.N., Mendelsohn, R.O., and Munasinghe, M. (2005), ‘Climate change and agriculture in Sri Lanka: a Ricardian valuation’, Environment and Development Economics 10(5): 581–596.Google Scholar
Wang, J.X., Mendelsohn, R.O., Dinar, A., Huang, J.K., Rozelle, S., and Zhang, L.J. (2009), ‘The impact of climate change on China's agriculture’, Agricultural Economics 40(3): 323–337.Google Scholar
Wood, S.A., Jina, A.S., Jain, M., Kristjanson, P., and DeFries, R.S. (2014), ‘Smallholder farmer cropping decisions related to climate variability across multiple regions’, Global Environmental Change, [Available at] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. gloenvcha.2013.12.011.Google Scholar
Bank, World (2003), African Rainfall and Temperature Evaluation System (ARTES), Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Wood and Mendelsohn Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Wood and Mendelsohn Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 58.9 KB