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Cost implications of agricultural land degradation in Ghana:
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Abstract
"An economywide, multimarket model is constructed for Ghana and the effects of agricultural soil erosion on crop yields are explicitly modeled at the subnational regional level for eight main staple crops. The model is used to evaluate the aggregate economic costs of soil erosion by taking into account economywide linkages between production and consumption, across sectors and agricultural subsectors. To fill a gap in the literature regarding economic cost analysis of soil erosion, this paper also analyzes the poverty implications of land degradation. The model predicts that land degradation reduces agricultural income in Ghana by a total of US4.2billionovertheperiod2006–2015,whichisapproximatelyfivepercentoftotalagriculturalGDPinthesetenyears.Theeffectofsoillossonpovertyisalsosignificantatthenationallevel,equivalenttoa5.4percentagepointincreaseinthepovertyratein2015comparedtothecaseofnosoilloss.Moreover,soillosscausesaslowingofpovertyreductionovertimeinthethreenorthernregions,whichcurrentlyhavethehighestpovertyratesinthecountry.Sustainablelandmanagement(SLM)isthekeytoreducingagriculturalsoilloss.ThepresentfindingsindicatethatthroughtheadoptionofconventionalSLMpractices,thedecliningtrendinlandproductivitycanbereversed,andthatuseofacombinationofconventionalandmodernSLMpracticeswouldgenerateanaggregateeconomicbenefitofUS6.4 billion over the period 2006–2015. SLM practices would therefore significantly reduce poverty in Ghana, particularly in the three northern regions." Authors' AbstractLand degradation, Costs, Agricultural soil loss, Economywide modeling, Modeling cost of land degradation,