Impacts of and seasonal adaptation to climate change: structural Ricardian evidence from smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

Babatunde Abidoye, Agha Ali Akram, Sudha Kannan, Pradeep Kurukulasuriya and Kehinde O. Omotoso

Chapter 6 in Handbook on Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Agriculture, 2026, pp 88-102 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines the impacts of climate change on African agriculture using recent multi-country farmer microdata and representative concentration pathways (RCP) adopted by the IPCC. Climate change has direct implications on agriculture globally but especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where many livelihoods depend on farming. We quantify the impact of climate change on farmers by leveraging data from a coordinated survey across Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and São Tomé and Príncipe. We find that an increase in spring temperatures and an increase in summer precipitation positively affect farmer net revenues. In contrast, an increase in winter temperatures and autumn precipitation negatively affect net revenue. We also find evidence that farmers effectively adapt to climate variability by intensifying their cropping calendars—planting multiple crops in a year rather than relying on a single harvest. We extend our analysis to evaluate the effects of future climate scenarios (RCPs 2.6, 4.5, 8.5) over the years 2021–2040, 2041–2060, and 2081–2100. Our analysis suggests that given adaptation, farmers see damage that is stable over time under the RCP 2.6 scenario. Under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, the damage improves over time, but uncertainty is higher.

Keywords: Climate Change; Agriculture; Sub-saharan Africa; Small-scale Farmers; Adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035344963
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