Can smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability, and how effective are policy interventions? Agent-based simulation results for Ethiopia
Can smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability, and how effective are policy interventions? Agent-based simulation results for Ethiopia
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/agec.12367
复制
发表时间：
2017-11-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Gbegbelegbe, Sika
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berger, Thomas;Troost, Christian;Gbegbelegbe, Sika
气候多变，加上意想不到的干旱和洪水，造成严重的生产损失，危及粮食安全，特别是在撒哈拉以南非洲地区。本研究应用随机生物经济模型分析埃塞俄比亚小农对气候和价格变化的适应。它使用基于代理的模拟包数学规划为基础的多代理系统（MPMAS）捕捉不可分离的生产和消费决策在家庭层面上，考虑牲畜和桉树销售的消费平滑，以及农民对政策干预的反应。我们发现，推广新的玉米和小麦品种是一个有效的适应选择，平均而言，特别是在伴随着政策干预，如信贷和化肥补贴。我们还发现，现有的适应方案的有效性是完全不同的异质性小农人口在埃塞俄比亚。这意味着，基于普通农户的政策评估可能会误导政策制定者坚持平均而言有益的干预措施，尽管这些干预措施在解决贫困和粮食不安全农民的特殊需求方面无效。
Climate variability with unexpected droughts and floods causes serious production losses and worsens food security, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study applies stochastic bioeconomic modeling to analyze smallholder adaptation to climate and price variability in Ethiopia. It uses the agent-based simulation package Mathematical Programming-based Multi-Agent Systems (MPMAS) to capture nonseparable production and consumption decisions at household level, considering livestock and eucalyptus sales for consumption smoothing, as well as farmer responses to policy interventions. We find the promotion of new maize and wheat varieties to be an effective adaptation option, on average, especially when accompanied by policy interventions such as credit and fertilizer subsidy. We also find that the effectiveness of available adaptation options is quite different across the heterogeneous smallholder population in Ethiopia. This implies that policy assessments based on average farm households may mislead policy makers to adhere to interventions that are beneficial on average albeit ineffective in addressing the particular needs of poor and food insecure farmers.