The impact of climatic change on agricultural production: Is it different for Africa?

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of climatic change on the level of total agricultural production of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and non-Sub-Sahara Africa (NSSA) developing countries. In doing so it uses a new cross-country panel climatic dataset in an agricultural production framework. The results show that climate, measured as changes in country-wide rainfall and temperature, has been a major determinant of agricultural production in SSA. In contrast, NSSA countries appear not to be affected by climate in the same manner. Simulations using the estimates suggest that the detrimental changes in climate since the 1960s can account for a substantial portion of the gap in agricultural production between SSA and the rest of the developing world.