A Ricardian Analysis of the Distribution of Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture across Agro-ecological Zones in Africa

This paper examines the distribution of climate change impacts across the sixteen Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) of Africa. We combine net revenue from livestock and crops and regress total net revenue on a set of climate, soil, and socio-economic variables with and without country fixed effects. Although African crop net revenue is very sensitive to climate change, combined livestock and crop net revenue is more climate resilient. With the hot and dry CCC climate scenario, average damage estimates reach 27% by 2100, but with the mild and wet PCM scenario, African farmers will benefit. The analysis of AEZs implies that the effects of climate change will be quite different across Africa. For example, currently productive areas such as dry/moist savannah are more vulnerable to climate change while currently less productive agricultural zones such as humid forest or sub-humid AEZs become more productive in the future.