Climate Change and Plantation Agriculture: A Ricardian Analysis of Farmlands in Nigeria

Abstract

This study used the Ricardian approach that captures farmer adaptations to varying environmental factors to analyze the impact of climate change (CC) on plantation agriculture in Nigeria. By collecting data from 280 farm households in seven different agro-ecological zones of Nigeria (Cross River, Abia, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo and Ogun States), the quantity of crops produced over time and land value proxied by net revenue per hectares (NR), were regressed on climate, household and soil variables. The results suggest that these variables have a significant impact on the net crop revenue per hectare of farmlands under Nigerian conditions. Specifically, seasonal marginal impact analysis indicates that increasing temperature during summer and winter would significantly reduce crop net revenue per hectare whereas marginally increasing precipitation during spring would significantly increase net crop revenue per hectare. Furthermore, the net crop revenue impact of predicted climate scenarios from three models (CGM2, HaDCM3 and PCM) for the years 2020, 2060 and 2100 suggest drastic decline in future net revenue per hectare for plantation crops in Nigeria. However, these marginal impacts are not uniformly distributed across the different agro-ecological zones in Nigeria.