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Climate, crops, and forests: a pan-tropical analysis of household income generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2018

Sven Wunder Open the ORCID record for Sven Wunder [Opens in a new window] ,
Frederik Noack  and
Arild Angelsen
Sven Wunder*
Affiliation:
Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Lima, Peru
Frederik Noack
Affiliation:
Food and Resource Economics Group, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Arild Angelsen
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. Email: swunder@cgiar.org
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Abstract

Rural households in developing countries depend on crops, forest extraction and other income sources for their livelihoods, but these livelihood contributions are sensitive to climate change. Combining socioeconomic data from about 8,000 smallholder households across the tropics with gridded precipitation and temperature data, we find that households have the highest crop income at 21°C temperature and 2,000 mm precipitation. Forest incomes increase on both sides of this agricultural maximum. We further find indications that crop income declines in response to weather shocks while forest income increases, suggesting that households may cope by reallocating inputs from agriculture to forests. Forest production may thus be less sensitive than crop production to climatic fluctuations, gaining comparative advantage in extreme climates and under weather anomalies. This suggests that well-managed forests might help poor rural households to cope with and adapt to future climate change.

Keywords

Adaptationagricultureclimate changecopingforestslivelihoods
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Special Issue 3: Poverty and Climate Change , June 2018 , pp. 279 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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