Purpose Climate change and its imminent threat to human survival adversely impact the agriculture sector. In an impoverished country like The Gambia, economic costs of climate change are colossal. This study aims to establish a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for The Gambia’s agriculture sector to examine the effects of climate change on crops, livestock and sea-level rise. Design/methodology/approach This study used a CGE model with other climate change impact models to compute the impacts of climate change on The Gambia’s agriculture sector. The social accounting matrix calibrates the results from the various models, thereby generating the baseline results which exemplify a “steady-state” and policy shock results illustrating the medium- and long-term effects of climate change on the country’s agriculture sector. Findings The baseline results indicate the status quo showing the neglect of the agriculture sector due to limited investment in the sector. Hence, the sector is the “hardest hit” sector as a result of climate change. When the model factored in climate change in the medium term (2055) and long term (2085), the macroeconomic indicators of gross domestic product, national savings, wages, disposable income and consumer price index deteriorated, elucidating the vulnerability of the economy to climate change. The consumption of groundnuts, cattle and fish will decline by 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, in the long term. However, the production of all agricultural commodities will decline by an average of 35% for the same period. The results for international trade show that exportation would decline while importation will increase over time. The general price level for agricultural commodities would increase by 3% in 2055 and 5% in 2085. Generally, the results manifest the severity of climate change in the agriculture sector which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. The impact of climate change would result in agriculture and economic decline causing hunger, poverty and human misery. Originality/value The caveat of this study revealed the nuances not captured by previous Gambian climate change studies, thus the novelty of the study.

The paper investigates the relationship between exports, imports and economic growth in the Gambia using Granger causality analysis. The data was obtained from the World Development Indicator (WDI) and the periods covered were 1980-2017. The main aim of the study was to identify the relationship between import, export and growth in the Gambia. We added the exchange rate to have more views of their relationship with growth. The method used was Granger-Causality tests. According to the results, there is a causal relationship between growth rate and imports and imports and growth rate (bidirectional relationship). Exports do not Granger cause growth. Based on the outcome of the causality test, change in economic growth does not help explain the changes in exports, but it does for the change in imports of The Gambia. Exchange rate Granger causes growth in the Gambia. These provide evidence that imports is a source of economic growth in The Gambia. Overall import and exchange rate have a positive effect on growth.

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This paper aims to test empirically, the direction of causality between climate change, agriculture valued added, Food production (the proxy for food availability), and economic growth in the Gambia. This study employed annual data which were collected for the period 1960-2017 and analyzed these data using the ARDL approach and the granger causality framework. The empirical evidence shows that: (1) the short-run and long-run ARDL model confirmed that the growth of fish production and growth of livestock production in the Gambia have significant positive impacts on the growth of GDP; (2) the short-run and long-run ARDL model indicated that growth of food import and growth of agriculture have negative impacts on the growth of GDP; (3) Granger causality analysis between the lagged values of growth of GDP and lagged values of growth of Food availability indicators has unidirectional relationships; (4) lagged values of the growth of GDP Granger cause lagged values of growth of agriculture but lagged values of growth of agriculture do not garger cause lagged values of growth of GDP, which suggested an indirect relationship; (5) the relationship between the lagged values of growth of crop production and lagged values of growth of agriculture indicated a bidirectional relationship. Finally, an important indication is established on the role of fish production, livestock production, climate change, and crop production to control food availability and economic growth in the Gambia.