Do Climatic shocks matter for Food Security in Developing Countries?

KINDA S Romuald & BADOLO Felix

Outline

• Objective & Motivation

• Literature Review

Determinants of food security

Effects of Climate Change on Food Security

• Empirical analysis

• Conclusion

ObjectiveThe paper aims: To analyze the effects of climatic shocks on food

security (Percentage of total undernourished population, Per capita food production Index)

• We use aggregated panel data over 1960-2008 for 77 developing countries

• We apply modern econometric methods : Fixed Effects

Regain and importance of the climate change debate (Copenhagues (2009))

Authors apply microeconomic studies on Climate change and agriculture

Originality: macroeconomic study ( 77 developing countries), econometric method (Fixed effect)

Motivations

Literature review (1) Determinants of food securityDefinition of food security (FAO (2001) Microeconomic Causes

-Low rate of agricultural production (FAO, 2004)

-Low access to food supply

-infrastructures and local markets

-environment health Macroeconomic Causes

-Economic performance (Pritchett & Summers,1996 Wiesmann, 2006)

Literature review (2) -Population growth (Birdsall & Sinding (2001),

Merrick (2002))-Trade policy (Merrick (2002) -Political institutions (Sen (1999), Sen (2000);

Wiesmann (2006)) Effects of Climate Change on Food Security Effect on food availability (Schmidhuber and

Tubiello (2007), Porter and Semenov(2005), Wheeler et al.(2000), IPCC (2007c))

Effect on food stability (FAO (2008), IPCC ( 2001))

Literature review (3)

Effect on food utilization (Taub and al. (2008), McMichael and al. (2006) Canfalonieri and al. (2007)

Effect on food accessibility (Du Toit and Ziervogel (2004), Thomsen and Metz (1998))

Empirical analysis (1)Analyze effects of climatic shocks on food

security

Estimation method

With X : { income per capita, inflation, rainfall, population growth}, error term, time effect and country fix- effects.

variable of food security:

Empirical analysis (2)

- Proportion of undernourished population

-Index of per capita food production

Heterogeneity: African countries

Estimation strategy : Fixed Effects (FE)

Sources

-World Development Indicators (2011): proportion of undernourished people, index of per capita food production, income per capita, inflation, population, cultivated lands

-Guillaumont P and Simonet C (2011): rainfall volatility, rainfall, positive and negative rainfall shocks

Empirical analysis (3)

Empirical analysis (4)Rainfall volatility increases food insecurity in DC: It has a positive effect on percent total

undernourished pop. It has a negative effect on Food production

Level of rainfall has no effect on food insecurity (food production, the percentage of total undernourished population)

Results are robust with control variables

(economic development, Demographic expansion, inflation and cultivated lands )

• The effects of rainfall shocks on food security are different for African countries?

Empirical analysis (5)

Empirical analysis (6)Results suggest that African countries are more

vulnerable to rainfall instability than other regions

The effect of rainfall inst on food insec (percent tot undernourished population, food prod) is higher in Sub Sahara countries than in other regions.

Conclusion (1)

We analyze the effect of climatic shocks on Food security

Period:1960-2008 , 77 developing countries

Rainfall instability (negative rainfall shocks) increases food insecurity in DC

The effect is higher in Sub Sahara countries ( 30 countries) than DC

The level of rainfall has not effect

Conclusion (2)

Policies recommendation: One of them is the diversification of African

economies that are less reliant on agriculture. These countries should adopt agricultural

techniques that optimize water use through increased and improved irrigation systems and crop development.

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