The current and expected consequences of climate change for agriculture in Africa

Erdősi, Ferenc

Keywords: drought, sea level rise, population growth, famine, food security

Africa’s future food supply is an open question. The continent’s agricultural production even without climate change cannot keep up with the past, contemporary and projected population growth rate Climate change is only an aggravating factor. Although the population’s long-term natural growth rate is slightly slower, the significant increase in imports even for the supply of minimum food needs is not an option. Theoretically, there are three ways to substantially improve the domestic sources of supply: the substantial growth of average crop yields (intensive mode), the increase in agricultural production territory (extensive mode), and the use of food crops almost exclusively serving export purposes (luxury items, tropical fruits, fl owers etc.) in production (changing the structure of production). However, in practice, these methods can be applied only to a very limited extent. The intensification efforts to date (partly due to the lack of capital) have resulted in only a relatively modest yield surplus. As a result of mass starvation millions of ‘climate migrants’ may cause serious problems for Europe forced to accommodate these migrants.

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