Long‐Run and Short‐Run Impacts of Climate Change on Food and Agricultural Production in Africa: Any Role for Political Stability?

This paper examined the impact of climate change through the carbon emissions channel on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. It adopted the transposed second-generation environmental Kuznets curve model, which defined growth (agricultural productivity) as a function of climate change. Data from world development indicators between 1960 and 2019 were utilized to examine the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity. The paper employed the bound test (ARDL) method. The result showed the existence of a long-run relationship between carbon emissions (proxy by CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and CO<sub>2</sub> intensity) and agricultural productivity (proxy by Agric.GDP, crop production index, and food production index) in Nigeria. The speed of adjustments is between 34% and 80%. Thus, a change in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and intensity affects Agric.GDP differently, but CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and intensity negatively impacted crop and food production in Nigeria. The result implies that carbon emissions and carbon intensity cause decline and generates a dampening threat to Nigeria’s agricultural productivity through physical risk channels. By extension, the study concludes that carbon emission causes climate vulnerability that affects agricultural yields, production, and productivity. Carbon emissions results in low agricultural productivity which in turn disrupt food security as well as distort the poverty reduction strategy in the country. This study, therefore, recommends an equitable implementation of carbon pricing, adoption of mitigation policies, promotion of effective and efficient environmental laws, and the implementation of an appropriate abatement policy that jointly optimizes environmental stability and growth targets of the sustainable development goals.

Agricultural productivity remains pivotal to the sustenance of the economies and livelihoods of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. However, the emerging threat of climate change poses a significant challenge to these agricultural-dependent economies. Sub-Saharan African countries are at risk of experiencing the severe effects of climate change on their agricultural productivity. This paper examines the impact of climate change, as proxied by CO2 emissions, on the agricultural production index in Sub-Saharan Africa. The agricultural production index consists of the Crop and Livestock Production Index. Data for the study were extracted from the World Development Indicator, covering the period 1996-2021. The analysis utilized the Panel GMM estimation technique. The study revealed that the effects of climate change vary on crop production and livestock production indices. While climate change has a positive and significant effect on the crop production index, it exhibits a negative and significant impact on the livestock production index. Factors such as technological development, arable land size, and renewable energy use play a significant role in enhancing agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conversely, government effectiveness and labor force exhibit a negative influence on the crop production index. In contrast to the crop production index, climate change has a detrimental effect on livestock productivity. Additionally, technological progress, renewable energy use, and arable land size have a negative impact on livestock productivity. The study recommends that African governments implement policies to promote technological progress, improve institutional quality, and increase renewable energy use in the agricultural sector to achieve sustainable agricultural growth. Policymakers and governments are also encouraged to address the challenges of communal land ownership and unclear property rights.

International audience

This study examines the relationship between renewable energy consumption, trade openness and agricultural productivity in Africa. Specifically, the study examines the intensity of the type of renewable energy consumed in Africa; investigates the effect of renewable energy consumption on agricultural productivity in Africa and analyse the effect of trade openness on agricultural productivity via the consumption of renewable energy in Africa. In achieving this, the System Generalized Methods of Moments (SYSGMM) estimation technique is employed while also checking the robustness of the result using the cross section augmented distributed lag model estimation technique. The result from the study shows that hydro and low carbon type of renewable energy accounts for over 90% of the renewable energy consumed in Africa between 2000 and 2020. Also, the result from the study shows that there is a positive and significant impact of renewable energy consumption on agricultural productivity in Africa. Trade openness and agricultural productivity have a positive relationship as trade openness facilitates the importation of machines that uses renewable energy in the agricultural value chain system. Thus, encouraging policy actions and the intensification of the use of renewable energy improves agricultural productivity in Africa. At regional level and in the long run, renewable energy consumption has a positive and significant effect on agricultural productivity only in Central and Southern region of Africa. Also, at the regional level, trade globalization has a positive and significant impact on agricultural productivity by enhancing the deployment of machines that uses renewable energy in the agricultural productivity in Central and Southern regions of Africa in the long run, and in the Eastern and Western regions of Africa in the short run. The use of renewable energy in the agricultural value-added space requires the deployment of new and innovative equipment which are mostly imported into Africa just like the processing and irrigation equipment; and these guarantees increase in agricultural productivity and efficiency. There is the need for respective governments of African economies and international development partners to provide finance for farmers which encouragesimportation of renewable energy enabled agricultural machineries used for processing, irrigation, packaging, refrigerating, transport system, storage, and handling value chains to guarantee improved agricultural productivity. Keywords: Agricultural Productivity; Renewable Energy Consumption; Trade Openness.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections of agricultural productivity, access to credit and farm size in Africa using Ghana as a case study.Design/methodology/approach– The paper employs mixed methods – quantitative and qualitative strategies for data collection and analyses. The hierarchical competitive model was used for the quantitative analyses supplemented with qualitative analyses using key informant interviews, focus group discussions and household case studies.Findings– The results show that there is significant relationship between credit from formal and informal sources and agricultural productivity. Thus access to formal and informal credit increases farm household agricultural productivity by about 0.10 (p=0.05) and 0.45 (p< 0.01), respectively. The quadratic terms of formal and informal credit as well as farm size were found to significantly influence agricultural productivity. The implication of this is that the relationships between formal credit, informal credit and farm size on one hand and agricultural productivity on the other are non-linear in nature. The interactions of formal credit with informal credit; informal credit with farm size; and formal and informal credit with farm size have significant relationships with agricultural productivity. The amount of remittance received by farm households has negative and insignificant influence on agricultural productivity. Market access is also an insignificant determinant of agricultural productivity in Ghana.Originality/value– This paper provides new insights on whether the scale of production (farm size as proxy) and access to financial services (credit as a proxy) matter in promoting agricultural productivity in Africa using Ghana as a case study. Thus the paper is of relevance to policy-makers and practitioners in Africa and Ghana in particular who are seeking to make informed policy decisions on effectively incorporating credit provision into the agricultural transformation agenda of the continent.

Earlier research largely ignored the effects of climate change on the growth of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) in Africa. This study shows how climate inputs impact TFP growth in addition to other productivity growth indicators and metrics, as well as how they can impact overall input efficiency as productivity drivers. We use a panel of 42 African nations from 1999 to 2019 and a nonparametric data envelopment analysis-Malmquist technique. The non-parametric analysis revealed that the average growth rate of the non-climate-induced TFP estimates was 1.9%, while the average growth rate of the climate-induced TFP estimates was 2.4%. Accounting for temperature and precipitation separately, TFP grew by 2.3% on average. This growth rate (2.3%) is slightly less than the combined effect of temperature and precipitation (2.4%) but higher than the typical TFP growth rate (1.9%) that ignores climate variables, indicating that TFP growth in African agriculture risks being underestimated when climate inputs are ignored. We also find the distribution of the climate effects to vary across regions. In northern Africa, for example, the temperature-induced TFP growth rates were negative due to rising temperature in the region. Evidence from the decomposed TFP estimates indicates that climate variables also influence productivity determinants. However, technology improvement is fundamental to mitigating the effects of extreme weather inputs on TFP growth in Africa's agriculture. As a result, a few policy suggestions are provided to help policymakers deal with the effects of climate change on TFP growth in Africa's agriculture and ensure food security. The study advocated for a reevaluation of the climate–agriculture effect in order to fully comprehend the role of climate factors and their contributions to agricultural TFP growth in Africa.

Agricultural Productivity in Africa: Trends, Patterns, and Determinants presents updated and new analyses of land, labor, and total productivity trends in African agriculture. It brings together analyses of a unique mix of data sources and evaluations of public policies and development projects to recommend ways to increase agricultural productivity in Africa. This book is timely in light of the recent and ongoing growth recovery across the continent. The good news is that agricultural productivity in Africa increased at a moderate rate between 1961 and 2012, although there are variations in the rate of growth in land, labor, and total factor productivities depending on country and region. Differences in input use and capital intensities in agricultural production in the various farming systems and agricultural productivity zones also affect advancements in technology. One conclusion based on the book’s research findings derives from the substantial spatial variation in agricultural productivity. For areas with similar agricultural productivity growth trends and factors, what works well in one area can be used as the basis for formulating best-fit, location-specific agricultural policies, investments, and interventions in similar areas. This finding along with others will be of particular interest to policy- and decisionmakers.

This study aims to explore the effect of foreign direct investment on different types of production indices and some other variables. For this, panel data of 46 countries from Asia was accumulated for the time frame of 1991 to 2018. This paper employed the OLS, POLS, 2SLS, and GMM models. The study reveals that there is a favorable association between foreign direct investment and food production index and fertilizer consumption in all the models used in the study. Livestock production index has significant positive association with foreign direct investment in POLS and GMM models. Crop yield has major positive association with regards to foreign direct investment in all mentioned models except GMM. Land under cereal production has significant positive association in respect of foreign direct investment in OLS and 2SLS models. Crop production index has significant mixed association with foreign direct investment in different models. In POLS model, crop production index and foreign direct investment has significant inverse relationship and in GMM model, crop production index and foreign direct investment has significant positive correlation. Finally, permanent cropland has significant negative relationship with regards to foreign direct investment derived from OLS and 2SLS models.

PurposeEmpirical evidence abounds on the individual effect of financial development and remittances on agricultural production, but little is known about their complementary role, especially in the context of African countries. This study fills this knowledge gap by examining the moderating role of financial development in the agricultural production–remittance nexus in Africa.Design/methodology/approachDifferent measures of financial development were employed, and the panel quantile regression model was adopted to analyse panel data of 33 African countries covering the period 2005–2020.FindingsThe results indicate that the effects of financial development on agricultural production vary across quantiles, and the dynamics of agricultural production are sensitive to the choice of financial development indicator. Nevertheless, financial development and remittances are highly indispensable for improved agricultural production in Africa, as financial development complements the positive effect of remittances on agricultural production.Practical implicationsAfrican countries need to strengthen their financial sector to facilitate the effective mobilization of remittances and other financial resources for investment in the agricultural sector and the improvement of the sector’s productivity.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that documents empirical evidence on the complementary role of financial development and remittances on agricultural production in Africa.

There is a crisis over rising food prices and increasing food shortages in Africa that has once again focused world attention on the problems of agricultural production in Africa. Over much of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) food production still fails to meet the basic needs of many millions of people. Why is it at the beginning of the 21st century that in so much of SSA food production has remained stubbornly low? Since the 1960s, food production in Africa has risen modestly, but almost entirely through increasing the area under cultivation (Evensin & Collin 2003), with average yields per hectare for most major crops remaining around 500-700 kg per hectare (Anon 2004). This is in marked contrast to the situation in Asia and South America where the adoption of new technology, the “Green Revolution”, has boosted average yields per hectare to two or three times that level and has helped lift many countries such as India, once chronically prone to famine, out of food insecurity. This issue, the causes of low agricultural productivity in Africa, is at the heart of a major development question: why is there still food insecurity for much of SSA? And it begs the further question of why agricultural research has had so little impact in erasing the spectre of food shortages across SSA.

The research aimed to analyze the effects of climate change on the food production index in Iraq during the period (1993-2022) based on a set of factors represented by total greenhouse gas emissions (tons of carbon dioxide equivalent), crop production index, livestock production index, rainfall rate, and average temperature using a standard model, which is ARDL. The research concluded the importance of improving agricultural and livestock production to positively reflect on the food production index, and this can only be achieved by providing the technical conditions to achieve this. The impact of rainfall was also positive, but this impact will be governed by other conditions, including the fact that the distribution of rainfall during the season is more important than the amount of precipitation. As for the variable of carbon dioxide emissions, it had a negative impact and there is a lack of awareness of the process of addressing the negative impacts. The same applies to temperatures, which had negative impacts. From this, we conclude that Iraq has neglected many of the measures and procedures that would have reduced rising temperatures, including the establishment of green belts around cities facing the desert and the dust storms it causes. The research also indicated that the factors affecting food production will continue to have a lasting impact in the long term, underscoring the importance of addressing them and mitigating their effects in the future. The research recommended the adoption of a green economy and the promotion of sustainable development projects, as well as encouraging farmers to cultivate drought- and heatresistant crops with high productivity, such as grains and desert grasses. It also recommended expanding protected agriculture, such as greenhouses, particularly in areas most affected by climate change, given its impact on stabilizing production, improving soil fertility, and enhancing community awareness of the risks of climate change. It also called for launching awareness campaigns targeting agricultural communities to increase understanding of the impacts of climate change and methods of adapting to it, and to encourage sustainable agricultural practices and modern technologies.

Future changes in the climate are projected to significantly affect the agricultural sector, notably agricultural production which include cropland suitability. The present study examines the impact of climate change on crop suitability and planting season in Africa under the new Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs). Using the multi-model ensemble climate simulation datasets from the CMIP6 simulations under different SSPs (ssp126, 245, 370 & 585) for the historical (1980-2009), near future (2035-2064) and end of century (2070-2099) study periods. Ecocrop, a crop suitability model was used to investigate the impact of climate change at different SSPs on the suitability and planting season of three crop types, cereals (maize), legumes (Cowpea) and root and tuber (Cassava) over Africa owing to their economic importance to the region. Our findings show all three crops are mainly suitable over most part of Africa with suitability index above 0.5 except south of 20oS in southern Africa and in the Sahel zone (north of 14oN) over the historical period. In general, the impact of climate change leads to about 4% and 7% increase in suitable cropland for Maize and Cowpea respectively relative to the historical period while about 4% suitability decrease is projected for Cassava across the four SSPs. Also, a projected decrease about 1-2% in unsuitable area is projected for the three crops both for near future and end of century relative to the historical period. In addition, no change in planting season is expected across the four SSPs except for a projected 1-2month early planting season for Cassava over West and Central Africa in the near future and end of century and 2-month delay in the planting season for cassava over Congo DR by the end of century under carbon emission with no adaptation (ssp585). The study will assist to improve our understanding on the impact climate change under different SSPs on agricultural production in Africa. It will also help inform policy maker in their decision making of adaptation strategies to ensure food security and zero hunger in sub-Saharan Africa.Keywords : Cropland suitability, Ecocrop, Africa, climate chnage, planting season, CMIP6  

Relevance. African farmers, together with specialized communities from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are making efforts to ensure that agricultural products in African markets are accessible to the population, but there are a number of problems that do not depend on the climate, on efforts to produce and grow raw materials, but affect the harvest, on its Delivery and storage are weak, undeveloped logistics, infrastructure, storage and processing of raw materials, and insufficient investment in all these technological processes. The purpose is to study the nature of the introduction of technological innovations to overcome the structural problems of the agro‒food system in Africa. Objectives: to identify megatrends that will have an impact on the formation of African food systems in the next decade; to study the innovative experience of developing agricultural and food production in some African countries. Methodology. The methodological tools of the research include scientific methods for analyzing general and specialized literature published in the public domain, accounting documentation from organizations such as AfCFTA, CAADP, CTA; statistical and analytical data from international organizations (OECD, FAO, ITU); current scientific publications by foreign authors on the research topic. Results. The concept of the food system is studied, which takes into account the managerial, economic, social and cultural aspects of food; the levels of agricultural transformation of the countries of the African continent; the problems of agricultural productivity in Africa. The experience of the development of agricultural and food production, taking into account the innovative information technologies of some African countries, is considered. Conclusions. The factors hindering the development of innovations in the agricultural and food sector are highlighted, and ways to overcome these factors are proposed. Despite the differentiated access to digital technologies within African countries, it is possible to note the efforts of the public sector, private investors and international non-governmental organizations to develop and implement digital technologies in the agro-food sector in Africa in order to advance countries towards food security.

Africa continues to experience serious signs of multiple crises in the context of sustainability. These crises include vulnerability to climate change, rapid urbanization, food insecurity, and many others. One crisis, that defines Africa today, is the unprecedented rapid urbanization which continues to pose a big challenge to the diminishing available resources, environmental quality and human well-being. Cities in Africa continue to experience a fast horizontal growth of settlements due to influx of people from rural areas who often settle in the economically lowest segments in urban areas. This horizontal rapid growth has eaten up land set for agriculture around cities and promoted the rapid growth of informal settlements exacerbating the impacts of climate change leading to a negative impact on agricultural production. Policies linking rapid urbanization and climate change with agricultural productivity are need. This paper explores and documents the impact of rapid urbanization on climate change policies and subsequent impact on agriculture in Africa.

Africa continues to experience serious signs of multiple crises in the context of sustainability. These crises include vulnerability to climate change, rapid urbanization, food insecurity, and many others. One crisis, that defines Africa today, is the unprecedented rapid urbanization which continues to pose a big challenge to the diminishing available resources, environmental quality and human well-being. Cities in Africa continue to experience a fast horizontal growth of settlements due to influx of people from rural areas who often settle in the economically lowest segments in urban areas. This horizontal rapid growth has eaten up land set for agriculture around cities and promoted the rapid growth of informal settlements exacerbating the impacts of climate change leading to a negative impact on agricultural production. Policies linking rapid urbanization and climate change with agricultural productivity are need. This paper explores and documents the impact of rapid urbanization on climate change policies and subsequent impact on agriculture in Africa.