Does Adaptation to Climate Change provide Food Security?

A Micro-perspective from Ethiopia


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Date

2010

Publication Type

Working Paper

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Abstract

We examine the driving forces behind farmers' decisions to adapt to climate change, and the impact of adaptation on farmers' food production. We investigate whether there are differences in the food production functions of farm households that adapted and those that did not adapt. We estimate a simultaneous equations model with endogenous switching to account for the heterogeneity in the decision to adapt or not, and for unobservable characteristics of farmers and their farm. We compare the expected food production under the actual and counterfactual cases that the farm household adapted or not to climate change. We find that the group of farm households that adapted has systematically different characteristics than the group of farm households that did not adapt. The relationship between production and average temperature is inverted U-shaped for farm households that adapted, while it is U-shaped for farm households that did not adapt, and vice versa in the case of precipitation. We find that adaptation increases food production. However, the impact of adaptation on food production is smaller for the farm households that actually did adapt than for the farm households that did not adapt in the counterfactual case that they adapted.

Publication status

published

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Book title

Journal / series

Volume

Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy Working Paper (22)

Pages / Article No.

Publisher

London School of Economics and Political Science

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Date created

Subject

Adaptation; Climate change; Endogenous switching; Ethiopia; Food security; Production; Spatial data

Organisational unit

03728 - Engel, Stefanie (ehemalig) check_circle

Notes

Also published by: University of Leeds. Also published as: Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 19.

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