Crop selection : adapting to climage change in Africa

This paper examines whether the choice of crops is affected by climate in Africa. Using a multinomial logit model, the paper regresses crop choice on climate, soils, and other factors. The model is estimated using a sample of more than 7,000 farmers across 11 countries in Africa. The study finds that crop choice is very climate sensitive. For example, farmers select sorghum and maize-millet in the cooler regions of Africa; maize-beans, maize-groundnut, and maize in moderately warm regions'and cowpea, cowpea-sorghum, and millet-groundnut in hot regions. Further, farmers choose sorghum, and millet-groundnut when conditions are dry; cowpea, cowpea-sorghum, maize-millet, and maize when medium wet; and maize-beans and maize-groundnut when wet. As temperatures warm, farmers will shift toward more heat tolerant crops. Depending on whether precipitation increases or decreases, farmers will also shift toward drought tolerant or water loving crops, respectively. There are several policy relevant conclusions to draw from this study. First, farmers will adapt to climate change by switching crops. Second, global warming impact studies cannot assume crop choice is exogenous. Third, this study only examines choices across current crops. Future farmers may well have more choices. There is an important role for agronomic research in developing new varieties more suited for higher temperatures. Future farmers may have even better adaptation alternatives with an expanded set of crop choices specifically targeted at higher temperatures.Crops&Crop Management Systems,Climate Change,Agriculture&Farming Systems,Renewable Energy,Global Environment Facility

A ricardian analysis of the impact of climate change on African cropland

This study examines the impact of climate change on cropland in Africa. It is based on a survey of more than 9,000 farmers in 11 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study uses a Ricardian cross-sectional approach in which net revenue is regressed on climate, water flow, soil, and economic variables. The results show that net revenues fall as precipitation falls or as temperatures warm across all the surveyed farms. In addition to examining all farms together, the study examined dryland and irrigated farms separately. Dryland farms areespecially climate sensitive. Irrigated farms have a positive immediate response to warming because they are located in relatively cool parts of Africa. The study also examined some simple climate scenarios to see how Africa would respond to climate change. These uniform scenarios assume that only one aspect of climate changes and the change is uniform across all of Africa. In addition, the study examined three climate change scenarios from Atmospheric Oceanic General Circulation Models. These scenarios predicted changes in climate in each country over time. Not all countries are equally vulnerable to climate change. First, the climate scenarios predict different temperature and precipitation changes in each country. Second, it is also important whether a country is already hot and dry. Third, the extent to which farms are irrigated is also important.Climate Change,Environmental Economics&Policies,Global Environment Facility,Common Property Resource Development,Crops&Crop Management Systems

How will climate change shift agro-ecological zones and impact African agriculture ?

The study develops a new method to measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture called the Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) Model. A multinomial logit is estimated to predict the probability of each AEZ in each district. The average percentage of cropland and average crop net revenue are calculated for each AEZ. Then an estimate of the amount of cropland in Africa and where it is located is provided. Using current conditions, the model calculates baseline values of cropland and crop net revenue, and estimates the future impact of climate change using two scenarios-harsh and mild. Total cropland does not change much across the two climate scenarios. However, the predicted change in African crop revenue ranges from a loss of 14 percent in the mild climate scenario to 30 percent in the harsher climate scenario. The analysis reveals that the greatest harm from climate change is that it will shift farms from high to low productive AEZs. The approach not only identifies the aggregate impacts, but also indicates where the impacts occur across Africa. The central region of Africa is hurt the most, especially in the harsher climate scenario. The Agro-Ecological Zone Model is a promising new method for valuing the long-term impacts of climate change on agriculture.Climate Change,Common Property Resource Development,Forestry,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Global Environment Facility

Scarperation : an empirical inquiry into the role of scarcity in fostering cooperation between international river riparians

The environment and security literature has argued that freshwater scarcity often leads to inter-state conflict, and possibly acute violence. The contention, however, ignores the long history of hydro-political cooperation exemplified by hundreds of documented agreements. Building on a theory that considers the relationship between scarcity and hydro-political cooperation, this paper empirically investigates why treaties are negotiated for some rivers and between some riparians, and not others. The paper suggests that long-term water scarcity has a significant influence on levels of cooperation. Additional variables considered include trade, level of governance among the riparian states, and the geography of the river. Findings confirm that cooperation and scarcity embody a concave (inverted U curve) relationship. Governance has a positive impact on cooperation. In addition, riparians may either arrange the use of their scarce water resources via a treaty or trade (and indirectly exchange [virtual]water). Scarcity, governance, and trade were found to be most salient in explaining levels of cooperation while geography is significant in some of the estimates.Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water Conservation

From the journals

Five article citations of interest to hospitalists

Case report

A 62 year old female was admitted to the hospital for elective, two-stage spinal surgery. She had a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, anemia, subclinical hypothyroidism, mild mental retardation, Ogilvie's syndrome and a compression fracture of her thoracic spine; she had a history of multiple past episodes of ileus, requiring hospitalizations. Following the initial, posterior procedure, the patient was kept intubated for stage 2, an anterior approach on postoperative day (POD) 3. After this second surgery, the patient developed episodic hypotension and hypoxemia, associated with anemia and a host of metabolic derangements (hyponatremia, hypokalemia, marked hypoalbuminemia and a labile serum glucose)

Novel care centers : their impact on hospitalization and hospitalists

Timely, affordable primary care is increasingly inaccessible for many patients, especially for the growing population of those disenfranchised by the health care system; these individuals have increasingly relied on Emergency Departments for the acute management of their problems. At the same time, EDs, an expensive means of health care (especially for the uninsured) have become excessively crowded and inefficient, having to deal with the additional load of non-critical urgencies. Medical Boutiques, Retail Care Kiosks and Urgent Care Centers (collectively referred to as Novel Care Centers -- NC -- in this article) are springing up to fill the void, marketing themselves as convenient sites for episodic, cheaper and more efficient care

Characterization of sialidase enzymes of Gardnerella spp.

Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) is a condition that occurs when the healthy, Lactobacillus spp. dominated vaginal microbiota is replaced by BV related bacteria. BV is highly prevalent in women in their reproductive age and known to be associated with preterm delivery and increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted diseases. An abundance of Gardnerella spp. is often found in cases of symptomatic BV, although they are also found in healthy women without manifesting any signs of BV. Recently, the description of Gardnerella vaginalis was amended and three new species were defined within the genus Gardnerella: G. leopoldii, G. swidsinskii, and G. piotii. Sialidase activity is recognised as an important virulence factor that contributes to degradation of vaginal mucus and is only found in G. piotii and Gardnerella genome species 3. For years, nanH1 was assumed to be the gene responsible for sialidase activity, but the intact open reading frame (ORF) is also found in sialidase negative strains. Our lab group discovered a gene (nanH3) in Gardnerella piotii and Gardnerella genome sp. 3 that is predicted to encode a cell wall attached, extra cellular sialidase. Interestingly, the ORF of nanH3 contains a homopolymeric tract of about 12 cytosine residues. Genomic regions that contain short, homogenous or heterogenous repeats are susceptible for slipped-strand mispairing (SSM) and may change the length of the repeat region at each replication. Here we attempt to characterize nanH3, determine if the homopolymer region of nanH3 varies in length in G. piotii and localize sialidases encoded by nanH1 and nanH3. Since previous attempts to express the entire nanH3 failed, a truncated version of nanH3 was expressed as a GST fusion protein (GST+TN3) in E. coli. Although expression of GST+TN3 was successful, the catalytic activity of the recombinant protein was not confirmed due to its poor solubility. The length of the homopolymer region of nanH3 varied from 8-14 cytosine residues within and among strains Gardnerella piotii, W11, VN014, VN015 and NR032 indicating that the expression of nanH3 may be regulated by SSM. Sialidase activity was more associated with the intact cells and the sonicated cell pellet than the respective supernatants. This suggests that sialidase activity of the four strains of Gardnerella piotii is more likely to be localized in the cell wall. The results of this study contribute to knowledge of characteristics that differentiate Gardnerella spp. and to the future development of preferable diagnostics for identifying high risk microbiome

The impact of climate change on African agriculture : a ricardian approach

This paper uses the Ricardian approach to examine how farmers in 11 countries in Africa have adapted to existing climatic conditions. It then estimates the effects of predicted changes in climate while accounting for whatever farmer adaptation might occur. This study differs from earlier ones by using farmers'own perceptions of the value of their land. Previous research, by contrast, has relied on either observed sale prices or net revenues, sometimes aggregated over geographically large tracts of terrain. The study also makes use of high resolution data describing soil quality and runoff.Furthermore, it tackles the challenges involved in modeling the effect of climate on agriculture in a study that includes countries in the northern and southern hemispheres, as well as the tropics. The study confirms that African agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Even with perfect adaptation, regional climate change by 2050 is predicted to entail production losses of 19.9 percent for Burkina Faso and 30.5 percent for Niger. By contrast, countries such as Ethiopia and South Africa are hardly affected at all, suffering productivity losses of only 1.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively. The study also confirms the importance of water supplies as measured by runoff, which, being affected by both temperature and precipitation, may itself be highly sensitive to climate change.Environmental Economics&Policies,Climate Change,Common Property Resource Development,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Global Environment Facility

Multiple use of water for opium eradication

Shifting cultivation practised communities do not have sufficient land for irrigated paddy growing. Subsistence farming in highlands does not generate income: hence cash crop is the opium poppy cultivation. Communities engaged in shifting cultivation do change locations of villages periodically, in search of fertile land. These communities do not have access to: primary health care, water and environmental sanitation, schools, agriculture extension services etc. and high level of opium addiction persists amongst inhabitants. Provision of a pure and adequate supply of water coupled with environmental sanitation, introduction of primary health care with a first-aid box with medicines and community mobilization along with participatory approaches to development have changed the life styles and improved living standards. Use of water for: drinking purposes, environmental sanitation, power extraction for house lighting, for lift irrigation, including paddy cultivation and de-husking of paddy have tremendously contributed to rural development and eradication of opium poppy cultivation