Implementing Rural-Urban Disaggregated Food Demand in a Partial Equilibrium Model

Global general and partial equilibrium models focused on the agricultural sector can help policy makers do ex-ante analysis by providing a variety of macro-level outcomes, such as changes in flows of international trade, and changes in the supply, demand, and prices of globally traded commodities. IFPRI’s IMPACT model (International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade) model is one such model. Since its inception nearly 20 years ago the model has evolved to inform increasingly complex and nuanced policy issues, such as the explicit modeling of water use and the productive response of agriculture to climate change. However, on the demand side it has remained a fairly blunt instrument. One oft mentioned shortcoming of global food policy models such as IMPACT model is that they treat national populations as a single composite consumer. As (relatively) wealthier urban and poorer rural populations exhibit different demand characteristics, have different base levels of food consumption, and have different levels of wealth, assigning a single representative consumer for an entire country could result in misleading results regarding both global prices and consumption and the food security of the poorer segments of the population. In this poster we present a global partial equilibrium food security model with disaggregated demand. Working from the IMPACT model, we divided national populations into their urban and rural components. Studies have shown that rural and urban consumers, as well as poor and rich consumers, have structurally different food demands. Accordingly, we assign different demand elasticities (price and income), different base consumption (at the commodity level), and different incomes to sub-populations populations within each country.  We have completed an extensive study of the food demand literature, using the findings to develop parameters to represent the structural differences in urban and rural food demand (see right for explanation of this process). We use rural/urban population and income data and projections from the UN to complete the disaggregation.Partial Equilibrium Models, Disaggregated Food Demand, IMPACT model, Food Security, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty,

Green, Adam. Selling the Race: Culture, Community and Black Chicago, 1940–1955. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 280 pp.

Agreement is developing among agricultural scientists on the emerging inability of agriculture to meet growing global food demands. Changes in trends of weather conditions projected by global climate models will challenge physiological limits of crops and exacerbate the global food challenge by 2050. These climate- and constraint-driven crop production challenges are interconnected within a complex global economy, where diverse factors add to price volatility and food scarcity. Our scenarios of the impact of climate change on food security through 2050 for internationally traded crops show that climate change does not threaten near-term US food security due to the availability of adaptation strategies. However, as climate continues to change beyond 2050 current adaptation measures will not be sufficient to meet growing food demand. Climate scenarios for higher-level carbon emissions exacerbate the food shortfall, although uncertainty in projections of future precipitation is a limitation to impact studies

Chinese food security and climate change: Agriculture futures

Climate change is now affecting agriculture and food production in every country of the world. Here the authors present the IMPACT model results on yield, production, and net trade of major crops in China, and on daily calorie availability as an overall indicator of food security under climate change scenarios and socio-economic pathways in 2050. The obtained results show a relatively optimistic outlook on yield, production and trade toward 2050. The outcomes of calorie availability suggest that China will be able to maintain a level of at least 3,000 kilocalories per day through 2010 to 2050. Overall, Chinese agriculture is relatively resilient to climate change. It is unlikely that Chinese food security by 2050 will be compromised in the context of climate change. The major challenge to food security, however, will rise from increasing demand coupled with regional disparities in adaptive capacity to climate change

Transforming Food Systems Under a Changing Climate: Future technologies and food systems innovation for accelerating progress towards the SDGs - key messages

The global food system is the single largest driver of global environmental change, contributing 24% of greenhouse gas missions, consuming 70% of blue water, and being the primary cause behind the 60% loss of vertebrate biodiversity since the 1970s. In the next three decades we will need a 30-70% increase in food availability to meet the demand for food by an increasingly numerous, urbanised and afuent population. The food system will need to change profoundly if humanity is to be provided with healthy food that is grown sustainably in ways that are both resilient in the face of climate change and do not surpass planetary boundaries. Technological innovation will have a critical role to play in this process. What might be possible if we adopted new, gamechanging technologies in the food system

Crash-testing policies; How scenarios can support climate change policy formulation A methodological guide with case studies from Latin America

The objective of this handbook is to guide policy makers and practitioners from the public, private and research sector in the development and use of scenarios to support the inclusive formulation of policies and other decision-making processes related to complex issues taking place in changing environments. The lessons shared are based on nine policy formulation processes for climate in Latin America supported by the CCAFS future scenarios project since 2013. Five of these cases are discussed to exemplify the steps described to use scenarios and support the development of policies

Crash-testing policies; How scenarios can support climate change policy formulation A methodological guide with case studies from Latin America

The objective of this handbook is to guide policy makers and practitioners from the public, private and research sector in the development and use of scenarios to support the inclusive formulation of policies and other decision-making processes related to complex issues taking place in changing environments. The lessons shared are based on nine policy formulation processes for climate in Latin America supported by the CCAFS future scenarios project since 2013. Five of these cases are discussed to exemplify the steps described to use scenarios and support the development of policies

Structural approaches to modeling the impact of climate change and adaptation technologies on crop yields and food security

Article purchasedAchieving and maintaining global food security is challenged by changes in population, income, and climate, among other drivers. Assessing these threats and weighing possible solutions requires a robust multidisciplinary approach. One such approach integrates biophysical modeling with economic modeling to explore the combined effects of climate stresses and future socioeconomic trends, thus providing a more accurate picture of how agriculture and the food system may be affected in the coming decades. We review and analyze the literature on this structural approach and present a case study that follows this methodology, explicitly modeling drought and heat tolerant crop varieties. We show that yield gains from adoption of these varieties differ by technology and region, but are generally comparable in scale to (and thus able to offset) adverse effects of climate change. However, yield increases over the projection period are dominated by the effects of growth in population, income, and general productivity, highlighting the importance of joint assessment of biophysical and socioeconomic drivers to better understand climate impacts and responses

The future of food security, environments and livelihoods in Eastern Africa: four socio-economic scenarios

This report presents 4 scenarios for the future of food security, agriculture, livelihoods and environments in East Africa. These scenarios were developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with a wide range of regional stakeholders. The report discusses the theory and development process of the scenarios, then presents detailed scenario narratives, semi-quantitative assumptions for a range of indicators, and finally outputs generated by 2 agricultural economic models, IMPACT and GLOBIOM. The report goes on to discuss the key results from the scenarios and then to describe the use of the scenarios in processes to guide decision-making in the context of East African food security and climate adaptation

Climate change adaptation in agriculture: Ex ante analysis of promising and alternative crop technologies using DSSAT and IMPACT

Achieving and maintaining global food security is challenged by changes in population, income, and climate, among other drivers. Assessing these challenges and possible solutions over the coming decades requires a rigorous multidisciplinary approach. To answer this challenge, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has developed a system of linked simulation models of global agriculture to do long-run scenario analysis of the effects of climate change and various adaptation strategies. This system includes the core International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT), which is linked to water models (global hydrology, water basin management, and water stress on crops) and crop simulation models. The Global Futures and Strategic Foresight program, a CGIAR initiative led by IFPRI in collaboration with other CGIAR research centers, is working to improve these tools and conducting ex ante assessments of promising technologies, investments, and policies under alternative global futures. Baseline projections from IMPACT set the foundation with the latest outlook on long-term trends in food demand and agricultural production based on projected changes in population, income, technology, and climate. On top of the baseline, scenarios are developed for assessing the impacts of promising climate-adapted technologies for maize, wheat, rice, potatoes, sorghum, groundnut, and cassava on yields, area, production, trade, and prices in 2050 at a variety of scales. Yield gains from adoption of the selected technologies vary by technology and region, but are found to be generally comparable in scale to (and thus able to offset) the adverse effects of climate change under a high-emissions representative concentration pathway (RCP 8.5). Even more important in this long-term climate change scenario are effects of growth in population, income, and investments in overall technological change, highlighting the importance of linked assessment of biophysical and socioeconomic drivers to better understand climate impacts and responses. For all crops in the selected countries, climate change impacts are negative with the baseline technology. All new technologies have beneficial effects on yields under climate change, with combined traits (drought and heat tolerance) showing the greatest benefi

Multi-factor, multi-state, multi-model scenarios: Exploring food and climate futures for Southeast Asia

Decision-makers aiming to improve food security, livelihoods and resilience are faced with an uncertain future. To develop robust policies they need tools to explore the potential effects of uncertain climatic, socioeconomic, and environmental changes. Methods have been developed to use scenarios to present alternative futures to inform policy. Nevertheless, many of these can limit the possibility space with which decision-makers engage. This paper will present a participatory scenario process that maintains a large possibility space through the use of multiple factors and factor-states and a multi-model ensemble to create and quantify four regional scenarios for Southeast Asia. To do this we will explain 1) the process of multi-factor, multi-state building was done in a stakeholder workshop in Vietnam, 2) the scenario quantification and model results from GLOBIOM and IMPACT, two economic models, and 3) how the scenarios have already been applied to diverse policy processes in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam