Conclusions: So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen,

Agriculture plays a large role in the economy across Africa and is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change, research needs to be conducted into this area in order to protect this livelihood. Crop models are an essential part of this climate change research (Roudier et al., 2011; Challinor 2007). Predicting how changes to temperature and rainfall patterns will influence crop yields in Africa provides essential data for agriculture mitigation strategies.

Consistency of literature.

One of the main conclusions drawn from the literature surrounds the relative importance of alterations to temperature vs rainfall patterns. A general consensus shows temperature change (predictions of approximately 1.4-1.6 degrees warming by 2050, approximately 0.2 degrees per decade (IPCC, 2013)) dominates over rainfall, having the largest negative influence on crop yields (Lobell et al., 2008; Roudier et al., 2011; Thorton et al., 2009). A warmer and drier climate is anticipated to reduce crop yields across Africa by 10-20% (Thorton et al., 2009).

Temperature patterns dominate, if rainfall remained the same, temperature would still decrease yields in West Africa by 15% (Schlenker and Lobell, 2010). Rainfall has the potential to either exaggerate or alleviate the influence of warming. This is not enough, however to overcome the issues of temperature change. Slack (2006) states demonstrates changes to rainfall compensate a 1.5 degree C temperature change for millet crop by -59% and -26% for a decrease or increasing in rainfall, retrospectively. This was supported by Gaun et al (2015).

Please note. These are generalised conclusions for Africa, these results will value for different locations and crop types. For example trends generally show a decrease in crop yield, yet rainfall can also mitigate climate change impacts. Some will witness an increase in crop yield. Within the Ethiopian highlands, surrounding Addis Ababa, Jones and Thorton (2003) predicted a “substantial localised yield increase” of up to 100% in places. Despite this the overall conclusions of the study showed a reduction in yield (maize across Africa) and in some cases too drastically (it is predicted) to prevent mitigate changes. This highlights the fact the sensitivity of crops across Africa are not uniform this fact should be notified when implementing mitigation schemes as a single policy may not be successful for a whole region.

Final words

Policy is something which has risen throughout a lot of the literature addressed. Crop models are proving very effective within the academic world but outside much work still needs to be done in order to use modelling results to implement successful policies (Bouman et al., 1996). One factor which will improve the application of agricultural policy is to involve knowledge of local farmers. The incorporation of such ideas will help reduce the gap between the needs of farmers and the academic hypothesis Stephens and Middleton (2000).