A BEJEAP Contributions article.

Abstract

This paper examines African livestock management across Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) to learn how they would adapt to climate change in the coming century. We analyze farm level decisions to own livestock and to choose a primary livestock species using logit models with and without country fixed effects or AEZ fixed effects. With a hot dry scenario, the results indicate that livestock ownership will increase slightly across all of Africa, but especially in West Africa and high elevation AEZs. Dairy cattle will decrease in semi-arid regions, sheep will increase in lowlands, and rearing chickens will increase at high elevations. On the other hand, if climate becomes wetter, livestock ownership will fall dramatically in lowlands and high elevation moist AEZs. Beef cattle will increase and sheep will fall in dry AEZs, dairy cattle will fall precipitously and goats will rise in moist AEZs, and chickens will increase at high elevations but fall at mid elevations. Therefore, adaptation measures should be tailored to a specific AEZ.

Submitted: January 29, 2008 · Accepted: July 12, 2008 · Published: March 30, 2009

Recommended Citation

Seo, S. Niggol; Mendelsohn, Robert; Dinar, Ariel; and Kurukulasuriya, Pradeep (2009) "Adapting to Climate Change Mosaically: An Analysis of African Livestock Management by Agro-Ecological Zones," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 9 : Iss. 2 (Contributions), Article 4.
DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.1955
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol9/iss2/art4

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BE_afaez_lvs _figures_25jan08.doc (4695 kB)
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