Climate Change, Agricultural Production and Civil Conflict: Evidence from the Philippines

Abstract

Climate change is predicted to affect global rainfall patterns, but there is mixed evidence with regard to the effect of rainfall on civil conflict. Even among researchers who argue that rainfall reduces civil conflict, there is disagreement as to the underlying mechanism. Using data from the Philippines for the period 2001-2009, we exploit seasonal variation in the relationship between rainfall and agricultural production to explore the connection between rainfall and civil conflict. In the Philippines, above-average rainfall during the wet season is harmful to agricultural production, while above-average rainfall during the dry season is beneficial. We show that the relationship between rainfall and civil conflict also exhibits seasonality, but in the opposite direction and with a one-year lag. Consistent with the hypothesis that rebel groups gain strength after a bad harvest, there is evidence that lagged rainfall affects the number of violent incidents initiated by insurgents but not the number of incidents initiated by government forces. Our results suggest that policies aimed at mitigating the effect of climate change on agricultural production could weaken the link between climate change and civil conflict.

Impact of Climate Change and Economic Activity on Philippine Agriculture: A Cointegration and Causality Analysis

“…Comparably, research done in the Philippines between 2001 and 2009 that looked at the relationship between rainfall and agricultural production revealed that above-average amounts of rainfall during the wet season are unfavorable for agricultural production, while increased precipitation is beneficial during the dry season [6]. In the same way, a study in Batac, Ilocos Norte on rainfall and temperature variability using annual data from 1976 to 2010 showed that the consequences brought about by climate change hamper agricultural productivity in the province [13].…”

“…As a remedial measure, Carbon Emission and Precipitation, both indicators of climate change, had to be removed from the previous model based on their VIF results, thus reducing the number of predictor variables from nine (9) down to six (6). The final diagnostic tests results are shown on Table 5.…”

Climate, agroecology, and farm returns: differential impacts with implications for agricultural progress in the face of climate change

“…In Figure 3, we provide a conceptual framework on how climate change affects our outcome variable of interest; farm revenue. Agriculture in developing countries is largely rainfed, hence changes in rainfall patterns will affect agriculture (Crost et al, 2015). Changes in rainfall alters agricultural calendar (Ochieng et al, 2016;Yila et al, 2023).…”