Climate change is likely to alter the environmental parameters which affect where agricultural commercialisation activity can happen in sub Saharan Africa, what can be grown and how well it will fare. In other words, it touches upon factors fundamental to the viability of commercialisation pathways.
Some contemporary forms of agricultural commercialisation – especially industrial agriculture – are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions and as such contribute to the anthropogenic climate change that farmers subsequently have to adapt to. African agriculture contributes very little to global climate emissions, but the climate impact it will face is contingent, at least in part, on the extent of reform of industrial agriculture elsewhere.
There is a consensus on high-level findings: temperature will rise, precipitation patterns will change, and cereal crop productivity is therefore expected to decrease. Temperature rise will undermine perennial crop performance, most pests/diseases are likely to increase. A number of areas in which high-value crops including tea, coffee, and cocoa are grown are projected to become less suitable for their production. However, the level of uncertainty that continues to exist in climate projections undermines their credibility as a basis for decision-making in the short-to-medium term even at country level, let alone at farm level.
Climate change will have an impact on all varieties of commercialisation, but we conjecture that it will differentially affect alternate pathways. There is an insufficient evidence base to substantiate this proposition as yet, and we see an opportunity to contribute to building it through the life course of the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) research agenda.