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Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture: Insights from the Small Island Economy of Mauritius

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Small Island Developing States

Part of the book series: The World of Small States ((WSS,volume 9))

Abstract

As a small island developing state, the Republic of Mauritius is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in the agricultural sector. Agriculture activities constitute 43.3 per cent of total land surface in the mainland of Mauritius and employs 7.2 per cent of the labour force. Being self-sufficient in a few food crops, a decline in agricultural output caused by climate change poses a threat, not only to the livelihoods of farmers, but also to food security. The present study attempts to estimate the economic impacts of climate change on agriculture for the Island of Mauritius. It applies the Ricardian approach on a small territorial scale, motivated by the microclimate system of the island. Using cross-sectional farm data from a sample of 392 farmers, the Ricardian estimates show that the agriculture sector responds negatively to changes in mean summer temperature and precipitation. The economic impacts of a rise in mean temperature by 1 °C is USD26.6 per acre per year with an elasticity of −0.13 evaluated at mean temperature. The elasticity of net farm revenue evaluated at mean precipitation is 0.03. The findings show the vulnerability of a small island to climate change and suggest a need to invest in adaptation measures for farmers in Mauritius.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    USD1 = MUR30.1 (World Bank Indicator, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.FCRF?locations=MU, accessed 2 June 2018).

  2. 2.

    Using the formula 1 hectare = 2.47105 acres.

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Acknowledgments

The survey was finance by a research grant from the Mauritius Research Council (MRC GA URGS 99) under the Africa Adaptation Programme. The study has also benefited from the discussion of participants on climate change training workshops (2011–2014) organised by the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA), University of Pretoria with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada). A special thank goes to Professor. R. Hassan from CEEPA for the Ricardian questionnaire and his insights on the Ricardian model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius

    Riad Sultan

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  1. Riad Sultan
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Correspondence to Riad Sultan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Islands and Small States Institute, Institute for European Studies, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Stefano Moncada

  2. Islands and Small States Institute, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Lino Briguglio

  3. Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Hilary Bambrick

  4. Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK

    Ilan Kelman

  5. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Ilan Kelman

  6. Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Catherine Iorns

  7. CERMES, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados

    Leonard Nurse

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Sultan, R. (2021). Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture: Insights from the Small Island Economy of Mauritius. In: Moncada, S., Briguglio, L., Bambrick, H., Kelman, I., Iorns, C., Nurse, L. (eds) Small Island Developing States. The World of Small States, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82774-8_7

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