The new Malthusian challenge in the Sahel: prospects for improving food security in Niger
The new Malthusian challenge in the Sahel: prospects for improving food security in Niger
复制标题
萨赫勒地区马尔萨斯的新挑战：改善尼日尔粮食安全的前景
DOI：
10.1007/s12571-022-01319-3
复制
发表时间：
2022
期刊：
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
Hertel, Thomas W.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kabir, Kayenat;Baldos, Uris Lantz;Hertel, Thomas W.
世界经济已经在很大程度上克服了马尔萨斯挑战，但在萨赫勒等地区，这一挑战仍然严峻，气候变化、农业生产力低下和人口高增长等多重威胁加剧了粮食不安全。虽然在萨赫勒地区的决策中广泛讨论了这些影响长期粮食安全的力量之间的相互作用，但基本上没有分析这些力量在粮食安全结果中的相对大小。在本文中，我们确定了到2050年这些长期驱动因素对尼日尔农村和城市粮食安全成果的相对贡献。然后，我们考虑三种政策情景来解决粮食安全问题：加速农业研发投资（供应方），降低生育率（需求方）和市场一体化。我们使用了一个历史验证的局部均衡模型，专门针对农业生产，数据输入来自各种来源，包括家庭和农场调查和网格单元水平的生产数据。我们的研究发现，在人口、收入和农业生产率的增长以及气候变化对产量和劳动生产率的影响中，尼日尔的人口增长仍将是该国农作物产量增长和营养不良的最大驱动力。预计增加的营养不良人口中有四分之三属于城市人口。气候变化对农业生产力的影响将对农村和城市人口的营养不良发生率产生不同的影响，到2050年将使另外200万人陷入营养不良。气候变化对农村人口的相对影响更大，抵消了作物价格上涨带来的收入增长。我们强调，除非在需求方面同时采取行动，否则人口迅速增长和气候变化造成的挫折可能会超过农业生产力方面可行的进步。在供应方面，需要采取干预措施，将研发支出转化为更高的农业生产力。进一步融入区域市场也将有助于减少营养不良的发生率。
The world economy has largely overcome the Malthusian challenge, but there are regions such as the Sahel where this challenge remains formidable and food insecurity is exacerbated by multiple threats of climate change, low agricultural productivity, and high population growth. While the interactions among these forces governing long-term food security are widely discussed for policy making in the Sahel, analysis of the comparative magnitude of the forces in the resulting food security outcomes is largely absent. In this paper, we identify the relative contribution of these long-term drivers of food security outcomes in rural and urban Niger into 2050. We then consider three policy scenarios to address food security issues: accelerated investments in agricultural R&D (supply side), reduction of fertility rates (demand side), and market integration. We use a historically validated partial equilibrium model tailored to Nigerien agriculture, with data inputs gleaned from various sources, including household and farm surveys and grid-cell level production data. Our study finds that among growth in population, income, and agricultural productivity and climate change impacts on yields and labor productivity, population growth in Niger will remain the single largest driver of crop output growth and undernourishment in the country. Three-fourths of the increase in undernourished population is projected to be among the urban population. Climate change impacts on agricultural productivity will have differential impacts on undernourishment prevalence among rural and urban population, pushing an additional 2 million people into undernourishment by 2050. The relative impacts of climate change are larger among the rural population offsetting revenue gains from increased crop prices. We emphasize that feasible advancements in agricultural productivity are likely to be outpaced by rapid population growth and climate change setbacks unless simultaneous actions are taken on the demand side. On the supply side, interventions are required in transforming R&D spending into higher farm productivity. Greater integration into regional markets will also aide in mitigating undernourishment prevalence.