Climate Change and Adaptation: The Case of Nigerian Agriculture

26 Pages Posted: 24 Apr 2013 Last revised: 14 May 2013

See all articles by Francesco Bosello

Francesco Bosello

University of Milan - Department of Economics, Business and Statistics; CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici

Lorenza Campagnolo

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Fabio Eboli

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM); CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici

Date Written: April 24, 2013

Abstract

The present research offers an economic assessment of climate change impacts on the four major crop families characterizing Nigerian agriculture, covering more than 80% of agricultural value added. The evaluation is performed shocking land productivity in a computable general equilibrium model tailored to replicate Nigerian economic development until the mid of this century. The detail of land uses in the model has been also increased differentiating land types per agro ecological zones. Uncertainty on future climate is captured, using, as input, yield changes computed by a crop model, covering the whole range of variability produced by an envelope of one RCM and tem GCM runs. Climate change turns to be unambiguously negative for Nigeria in the medium term with production losses, increase in crop prices, higher food dependency on foreign imports and GDP losses in all the simulations after 2025. In a second part of the paper a cost effectiveness analysis of adaptation in Nigeria agriculture is conducted. Adaptation practices considered are a mix of cheaper “soft measures” and more costly “hard” irrigation expansion. The main result is that cost effectiveness of the whole package crucially depends on the possibility to implement adaptation exploiting low cost opportunities. In this case all climate change damages can be offset with a benefit cost ration larger than one in all the climate regimes. Expensive irrigation expansion should however be applied on a much more limited acreage compared with soft measures. If adaptation costs are those of the high end estimates, full adaptation ceases to be cost/effective. This points out the need of a careful planning and implementation of adaptation, irrespectively on the type, looking for measures apt to control its unit cost.

Keywords: Climate Change, Impact, Adaptation, Agriculture, CGE Modelling

JEL Classification: C68, Q51, Q54, Q15

Suggested Citation

Bosello, Francesco and Campagnolo, Lorenza and Eboli, Fabio, Climate Change and Adaptation: The Case of Nigerian Agriculture (April 24, 2013). FEEM Working Paper No. 35.2013, CMCC Research Paper No. 0174 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2255920 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2255920

Francesco Bosello (Contact Author)

University of Milan - Department of Economics, Business and Statistics

Via Festa del Perdono, 7
Milan, 20122
Italy

CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici

via Augusto Imperatore, 16
Lecce, I-73100
Italy

Lorenza Campagnolo

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei ( email )

C.so Magenta 63
Milano, 20123
Italy

Fabio Eboli

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) ( email )

Corso Magenta 63
20123 Milan
Italy

CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici ( email )

via Augusto Imperatore, 16
Lecce, I-73100
Italy

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