TY - JOUR
T1 - Potential impacts of climate change on agriculture
T2 - A case of study of coffee production in Veracruz, Mexico
AU - Gay, C.
AU - Estrada, F.
AU - Conde, C.
AU - Eakin, H.
AU - Villers, L.
N1 - Funding Information:
1A non-monotonic function has a second derivative different from zero. That is, the ratio of the change in the dependent variable to changes in the independent variable is not constant for the domain of the independent variable. 2Assessments of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change in Multiple Regions (AIACC).The Group of Climate Change and Radiation of the Center for Atmospheric Sciencies, UNAM coordinates the research project “Integrated Assessment of Social Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change Among Farmers in Mexico and Argentina” supported by the Global System for Analysis, Research and Training (START), the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 3Climate data used for this study corresponds to Douglas’ region because it was considered more reliable than the data from meteorological stations located in these municipalities due to their poor quality (Bravo et al., 2005). 4Source: http://www.veracruz.gob.mx/secciones.html?seccion=cafe@cafe en ver 5Coffee production in Vietnam increased from representing a 5% of the world’s production in 1991 to the 13% in 2000. Source: http://www.ico.org/frameset/priset.htm. 6A daily wage is the economic retribution paid to a temporary worker for a day’s work. 7Consejo Estatal de Población, Xalapa, Veracruz (http://coespo.ver.gob.mx/boletin11dejulio. htm). 8Minimumwageisthelowestlegalremunerationforaday’swork.Source:INEGIandtheComisión Nacional de Salarios Mínimos. 9Source: INEGI and Consejo Nacional de Población. 10Obained from the Banco Nacional de México. 11Source: SAGARPA and International Coffee Organization. 12For example, in 2002 the Mexican Agriculture Ministry instrumented the Fondo de Estabilización del Café(Coffee Stabilization Fund) for partially compensating the producers’ income up to $20 USD when the prices are below $70 USD per 100 pounds (source: http://www.sagarpa.gob.mx/ sdr/progs2002/fe cafe.pdf). According to a survey conducted by the Institute for Rural Development of Veracruz (INVEDER), in 2001 a coffee producer received an average of $73 USD per hectare per year from government subsidies. 13Coffee stocks in the USA was selected as a potentially relevant variable for the model because the country is the world’s largest coffee importer followed by Germany and Japan. Source: International Coffee Organization. 14Source: Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial, http://www.impi.gob.mx/impi/jsp/ indice all.jsp?OpenFile=docs/marco j/ext cafe veracruz.html 15Reliable coffee production statistics for Veracruz were available from SAGARPA for the period 1969–2002. Production data was standardized to tons of arabica cherry coffee. 16International Coffee Organization (http://www.ico.org/), the National Federation of Coffee Producers of Colombia (http://www.cafedecolombia.com/), the Coffee Research Institute (http:// www.coffeeresearch.com), Naturland 2000, Nolasco 1985.
Funding Information:
We acknowledge the support of AIACC during the preparation of this paper. We thank Víctor Magaña and Juan Matías Méndez from the Department of Tropical Meteorology of the Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, UNAM for providing climatic data, and Francisco Calderón from the Department of Economics of the Universidad Iberoamericana for his help in econometrics.
PY - 2006/12
Y1 - 2006/12
N2 - This paper explores the relation between coffee production and climatic and economic variables in Veracruz in order to estimate the potential impacts of climate change. For this purpose, an econometric model is developed in terms of those variables. The model is validated by means of statistical analysis, and then used to project coffee production under different climatic conditions. Climate change scenarios are produced considering that the observed trends of climate variables will continue to prevail until the year 2020. An approach for constructing simple probability scenarios for future climate variability is presented and used to assess possible impacts of climate change beyond what is expected from changes in mean values. The model shows that temperature is the most relevant climatic factor for coffee production, since production responds significantly to seasonal temperature patterns. The results for the projected climate change conditions for year 2020 indicate that coffee production might not be economically viable for producers, since the model indicates a reduction of 34% of the current production. Although different economic variables (the state and international coffee prices, a producer price index for raw materials for coffee benefit, the national and the USA coffee stocks) were considered as potentially relevant, our model suggests that the state real minimum wage could be regarded as the most important economic variable. Real minimum wage is interpreted here as a proxy for the price of labor employed for coffee production. This activity in Mexico is very labor intensive representing up to 80% of coffee production costs. As expected, increments in the price of such an important production factor increase production costs and have strong negative effects on production. Different assumptions on how real minimum wage could evolve for the year 2020 are considered for developing future production scenarios.
AB - This paper explores the relation between coffee production and climatic and economic variables in Veracruz in order to estimate the potential impacts of climate change. For this purpose, an econometric model is developed in terms of those variables. The model is validated by means of statistical analysis, and then used to project coffee production under different climatic conditions. Climate change scenarios are produced considering that the observed trends of climate variables will continue to prevail until the year 2020. An approach for constructing simple probability scenarios for future climate variability is presented and used to assess possible impacts of climate change beyond what is expected from changes in mean values. The model shows that temperature is the most relevant climatic factor for coffee production, since production responds significantly to seasonal temperature patterns. The results for the projected climate change conditions for year 2020 indicate that coffee production might not be economically viable for producers, since the model indicates a reduction of 34% of the current production. Although different economic variables (the state and international coffee prices, a producer price index for raw materials for coffee benefit, the national and the USA coffee stocks) were considered as potentially relevant, our model suggests that the state real minimum wage could be regarded as the most important economic variable. Real minimum wage is interpreted here as a proxy for the price of labor employed for coffee production. This activity in Mexico is very labor intensive representing up to 80% of coffee production costs. As expected, increments in the price of such an important production factor increase production costs and have strong negative effects on production. Different assumptions on how real minimum wage could evolve for the year 2020 are considered for developing future production scenarios.
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U2 - 10.1007/s10584-006-9066-x
DO - 10.1007/s10584-006-9066-x
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:33751534871
SN - 0165-0009
VL - 79
SP - 259
EP - 288
JO - Climatic Change
JF - Climatic Change
IS - 3-4
ER -