Print Email Facebook Twitter The impact of climate change on crop production in West Africa: An assessment for the Oueme River Basin in Benin Title The impact of climate change on crop production in West Africa: An assessment for the Oueme River Basin in Benin Author Sonneveld, B.G.J.S. Keyzer, M.A. Adegbola, P. Pande, S. Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Water Management Date 2011-10-20 Abstract Climate change studies forWest Africa tend to predict a reduced potential for farming that will affect the food security situation of an already impoverished population. However, these studies largely ignore farmers’ adaptations and market adjustments that mitigate predicted negative effects. The paper attempts to fill some of this gap through a spatially explicit evaluation of the impact of climate change on farm income in the Oueme River Basin (ORB), Benin. The ORB is in many respects representative for the middle belt of West Africa where the predominantly sparse occupation leaves potential for migration from more densely populated areas. We apply a number of structural, spatially explicit relationships estimated for the whole territory of Benin to simulate conditions in the ORB proper that are similar to those currently prevailing in the drier North, and the more humid South. Our scenario results factor out for the main crops cultivated the constituent effects on yields, area, and revenue per ton. We find that under average climate change conditions the current low yields are not reduced, provided that cropping patterns are adjusted, while price increases partly compensate for the remaining adverse effects on farmer income. Consequently, without any policy intervention, farm incomes remain relatively stable, albeit at low levels and with increased occurrence of crop failures after extreme droughts. Scenario simulations show that there are also beneficial aspects that can, with adequate interventions, even turn losses into gains. Main channel for improvement would be the reduction of fallow, which is particularly promising because it requires few adjustments in prevailing farming practices, exploits the potential of uncultivated land and improves the water use efficiency. It also enables the Basin's capacity to absorb future migrant flows from more severely affected neighboring Sahelian areas. Subject agricultural production . adaptation . price effects . food security . scenario analysis To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:575abb72-6f6f-41fe-a9cf-dc107858bbdd DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-011-9931-x Publisher Springer ISSN 0920-4741 Source http://www.springerlink.com/content/5122315g21586m7j/ Source Water resources management, 26 (2), 2012 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights (c)2012 The Author(s). This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Files PDF 2012-103Sonneveld.pdf 759.2 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:575abb72-6f6f-41fe-a9cf-dc107858bbdd/datastream/OBJ/view