Crop Selection: Adapting to Climage Change in Africa

By P. Kurukulasuriya, R. Mendelsohn. 2007

156 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper examines whether the choice of crops is affected by climate in Africa. Using a multinomial logit model, the paper regresses crop choice on climate, soils, and other factors. The model is estimated using a sample of more than 7,000 farmers across 11 countries in Africa. The study finds that crop choice is very climate sensitive. For example, farmers select sorghum and maize-millet in the cooler regions of Africa; maize-beans, maize-groundnut, and maize in moderately warm regions' and cowpea, cowpea-sorghum, and millet-groundnut in hot regions. Further, farmers choose sorghum, and millet-groundnut when conditions are dry; cowpea, cowpea-sorghum, maize-millet, and maize when medium wet; and maize-beans and maize-groundnut when wet. As temperatures warm, farmers will shift toward more heat tolerant crops. Depending on whether precipitation increases or decreases, farmers will also shift toward drought tolerant or water loving crops, respectively. There are several policy relevant conclusions to draw from this study. First, farmers will adapt to climate change by switching crops. Second, global warming impact studies cannot assume crop choice is exogenous. Third, this study only examines choices across current crops. Future farmers may well have more choices. There is an important role for agronomic research in developing new varieties more suited for higher temperatures. Future farmers may have even better adaptation alternatives with an expanded set of crop choices specifically targeted at higher temperatures.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Economics and Econometrics, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2867bdee897a3df6a54a5df249b630923e96d11f

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Citations in the corpus

How Can African Agriculture Adapt to Climate Change? A Counterfactual Analysis from Ethiopia (2012, background): “As already identified by the existing literature, switching crops is one of the most remunerative strategies implemented by farmers (e.g., Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn 2007; Seo and Mendelsohn 2008c; Hassan and Nhemachena, 2008; Deressa et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2010).”
Climate change and variability in Sub-Saharan Africa: a review of current and future trends and impacts on agriculture and food security (2011, methodology): “For example, using the AEZ model, Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn (2008a) find that total cropland in Africa may not change much as climate change alters agroecological zones and the productivity of farms within them.”
An analysis of crop choice: Adapting to climate change in South American farms (2008, methodology): “Seo, S.N., Mendelsohn, R., 2007a. Measuring impacts and adaptations to climate change: a structural Ricardian model of African livestock management.”