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

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 precipi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environment and development economics 2018-06, Vol.23 (3), p.279-297
Main Authors: Wunder, Sven, Noack, Frederik, Angelsen, Arild
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Agricultural production
Climate change
Comparative advantage
Crop production
Crops
Developing countries
Family income
Forest management
Forests
Households
Income
Income generation
LDCs
Precipitation
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Rural areas
Rural poverty
Socioeconomic factors
Studies
Tropical environments
Variation
Weather
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:1355-770X
1469-4395
DOI:10.1017/S1355770X18000116