Climate Change and Food Security to 2030: A Global Economy-wide Perspective

Recent analyses of the possible adverse effects of climate change on agriculture in developing countries have raised food security concerns, especially for farm households who comprise most of the world’s poor and whose crop productivity is expected to fall. The present study uses a global economy-wide model to assess the expected (in some cases positive) effects on temperate zone crop productivity and the upward pressure on farm product prices from yield falls in developing countries. Also modelled is an expected adverse effect of higher temperatures and humidity in the tropics on the productivity of unskilled workers in developing countries. The net effect of those combined shocks on the agricultural sector’s competitiveness in any developing country is an economy-wide empirical matter, since unskilled workers are employed in nonfarm as well as farm activities. Given the degrees of uncertainty about plausible effects of climate change, our modelling accounts for a range of yield productivity and labor shocks. The results provide a range of consequences for international agricultural prices and for national food consumption, net farm income and economic welfare.