The impact of climate change on agriculture in the Republic of Mauritius : a socio-econometric study on Mauritian farming

Abstract: "Food security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life" (FAO Summit, 2003, pp. 28).Food insecurity is of concern regarding the Republic of Mauritius (ROM) since it is defined as a net food importing country. (Farming news, 2008). The impacts of climate change followed by their complexity could potentially have an increased risk effect upon the social and environmental welfare as well as the economic drivers in the ROM (www, UNESCO1, 2009). The primary victims when it comes to the impacts of climate change are the Mauritian agricultural producers since agriculture is highly dependent on climate stability, therefore affecting the yields of the producers. (Pers. com. S. Seenattun, 2010). Without increased research and development of sustainable agricultural models in order to tackle the consequences of climate change, socio-economic development risks to stagnate and affect the income of private households in Mauritius (ibid.). The main aim of the thesis is to determine, from a micro perspective using an econometric and survey approach, the impact of climate change upon tomato yields and further Mauritian agriculture. The study is based on two methodological approaches, determining how the impacts of climate change, more precisely how temperature, rainfall, sunshine hours and other socio-economic variables are affecting the yields of tomato and agricultural practice on Mauritius. The method applies two different tools, a Ricardian model based approach and a survey. The Ricardian based model calculates and analyzes the impacts of fluctuations in climatic variables upon tomato yields. The socio-economic study examines from a Mauritian farmer perspective, the impacts of climate change upon the yields of agricultural food crops and farmers production. It shall moreover examine how they perceive changes in climate. Further, the survey will analyze the socio-economic issues experienced by the farmers.The econometric results illustrate that increased temperatures and a decrease in precipitation would negatively affect tomato yields over the whole island, where monthly tomato yields in the Eastern region would decrease by 8.2% in the short-run and 13.3% in the long-run with a 1°C temperature increase and 10% precipitation decrease for instance. The result per region permits to analyze which area is more sensitive to an increase or decrease in a specific climatic variable. The main findings from the survey demonstrated which socio-economic variables are important according to the farmers, such as input costs and lack of labour. The survey also showed that indeed, Mauritian farmers have perceived changes in climate and that accordingly changes in climate is negatively affecting their yields. The thesis is concluded with a table summarizing the main point from both studies followed by the main topics that should be incorporated in a Sustainable Agricultural Model for the Republic of Mauritius. Key terms: Econometrics, Food crops, Agriculture, Mauritius, Ricardian modeling, Socio-economic survey, Farmers, SWOT-analysis, Statistical significance, ANOVA-test.