Climate variability, crop and conflict: Exploring the impacts of spatial concentration in agricultural production

Paola Vesco, Matija Kovacic, Malcolm Mistry and Mihai Croicu
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Paola Vesco: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 8097Uppsala University & CMCC, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change
Matija Kovacic: Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice & 99013European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra
Malcolm Mistry: Department of Economics, 19047Ca’ Foscari University of Venice & CMCC, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change
Mihai Croicu: 8097Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University

Journal of Peace Research, 2021, vol. 58, issue 1, 98-113

Abstract: Although substantive agreement exists on the role of climate variability and food scarcity in increasing violence, a limited number of studies have investigated how food resources affect violent conflict. This article explores the complex linkages between climate variability, agricultural production and conflict onset, by focusing on the spatial distribution of crop production in a cross-country setting. We hypothesize that spatial differences in crop production within countries are a relevant factor in shaping the impact of climate variability on conflict in agriculturally -dependent countries. To test this hypothesis, we rely on high-resolution global gridded data on the local yield of four main crops for the period 1982–2015 and aggregate the grid-cell information on crop production to compute an empirical indicator of the spatial concentration of agricultural production within countries. Our results show that the negative impacts of climate variability lead to an increase in the spatial concentration of agricultural production within countries. In turn, the combined effect of climate extremes and crop production concentration increases the predicted probability of conflict onset by up to 14% in agriculturally dependent countries.

Keywords: agriculture; food; climate variability; conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:58:y:2021:i:1:p:98-113

DOI: 10.1177/0022343320971020

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