The impact of climate change on cocoa production in West Africa

Abstract

Purpose – The study aimed at examining the current and future impact of climate change on cocoa production in West Africa. Design/methodology/approach – A translog production function based on crop yield response framework was used. A panel model was estimated using data drawn from cocoa-producing countries in West Africa. An in-sample simulation was used to determine the predictive power of the model. In addition, an out-sample simulation revealed the effect of future trends of temperature and precipitation on cocoa output. Findings – Temperature and precipitation play a considerable role in cocoa production in West Africa. It was established that extreme temperature adversely affected cocoa output in the sub-region. Furthermore, increasing temperature and declining precipitation trends will reduce cocoa output in the future. Practical implications – An important implication of this study is the recognition that lagging effects are the determinants of cocoa output and not coincident effects. This finds support from the agronomic point of view considering the gestation period of the cocoa crop. Originality/value – Although several studies have been carried out in this area, this study modeled and estimated the interacting effects of factors that influence cocoa production. This is closer to reality, as climatic factors and agricultural inputs combine to yield output.

Cocoa and Climate Change: Insights from Smallholder Cocoa Producers in Ghana Regarding Challenges in Implementing Climate Change Mitigation Strategies

“…Numerous studies have examined the perceptions of farmers on such topics as the impact of climate change on cocoa yields [8,9,20,21], smallholder choice of cocoa production systems [22][23][24], the potential benefits of cocoa agroforestry [25,26] and advantages of REDD+ in cocoa production [13,27]. There is however, limited information on how farmers perceive the inclusion of climate change mitigation strategies into their land/farm management objectives.…”

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“…This theory takes into account the influence of the weather on crops in the analysis of agricultural production by combining rainfall and temperature into composite "aridity" indices. It assumes that weather variables as "costless" inputs to the production process Ceteris Paribus (Ofori-Boateng and Insah, 2014). It should be observed that studies carried out using this model conclude that climate change has very damaging effects on agriculture (Rosenzweig 1985;Robertson et al 1987).…”

“…It is an approach developed by Mendelsohn and al (1994) to assess the impact of climatic hazards on agricultural income. By considering farmers' income rather than yield, was a way to account for farmers' adaptation strategies Insah, 2011 and. The Ricardian model was criticized for assuming price constancy and also that adaptation strategies were cost-free (Cline, 1996;Deressa et al, 2005;Deschênes and Greenstone, 2007) thus underestimating the true impact of climate change.…”

Exploring Cocoa Farm Land Use in the West African Region

“…Based on the appraised annual full market worth of the cocoa sector of US $100 billion dollars [15], just around $6 billion dollars accrues to the 5 million growers who cultivate cocoa plants and those harvesting the beans in the West African region [16]. This level of socio-economic inequity together with the perceived ecological consequences of cocoa harvests in the producing nations of West Africa indicates that most consumption habits elsewhere usually leave in their wake grave problems which can no longer be ignored [17,18,19,20,21].…”