Fertilizer prices and deforestation in Africa

IF 6.8 1区经济学 Q1 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY

Food Policy Pub Date : 2024-07-01 DOI:10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102674

Yacouba Kassouri

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study explores the impact of fertilizer (urea) prices on local deforestation by exploiting the exogenous variation in the world price of urea inclusive of trade costs from the world market to the local market. The empirical analysis relies on a unique geo-coded dataset on the market price of urea across 158 subnational hub markets in 21 African countries and satellite-derived forest loss estimates over the period 2003 – 2012. The results suggest that fertilizer prices positively affect deforestation rate and forest cover loss. On average, a 1 % increase in local urea prices corresponds to 97.65 Ha of forest loss within a particular local market catchment. Specifically, the results reveal a price elasticity of approximatively 1 between urea prices and forest loss. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the effects of urea prices on forest loss tend to be concentrated in markets with subtropical and tropical ecological features. Furthermore, I provide evidence for the land-conversion mechanism, implying that urea prices are positively associated with the expansion of agricultural land. Estimating an event study around exposure to a sustained jump in urea prices reveals a persistent response of deforestation and forest cover loss to fertilizer prices.

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化肥价格与非洲毁林问题

本研究利用世界尿素价格的外生变化（包括从世界市场到当地市场的贸易成本），探讨化肥（尿素）价格对当地森林砍伐的影响。实证分析依赖于一个独特的地理编码数据集，该数据集涉及 21 个非洲国家 158 个国家级以下枢纽市场的尿素市场价格，以及 2003 - 2012 年期间卫星得出的森林损失估算值。结果表明，化肥价格对森林砍伐率和森林植被损失有积极影响。平均而言，当地尿素价格每上涨 1%，特定当地市场集水区内的森林面积就会减少 97.65 公顷。具体而言，结果显示尿素价格与森林损失之间的价格弹性近似为 1。异质性分析表明，尿素价格对森林损失的影响往往集中在具有亚热带和热带生态特征的市场。此外，我还提供了土地转化机制的证据，这意味着尿素价格与农业用地的扩大呈正相关。通过对尿素价格持续跳涨的事件研究进行估计，发现森林砍伐和森林植被损失对化肥价格的持续反应。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Food Policy 管理科学-农业经济与政策

CiteScore

11.40

自引率

4.60%

发文量

128

审稿时长

62 days

期刊介绍： Food Policy is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original research and novel evidence on issues in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies for the food sector in developing, transition, and advanced economies. Our main focus is on the economic and social aspect of food policy, and we prioritize empirical studies informing international food policy debates. Provided that articles make a clear and explicit contribution to food policy debates of international interest, we consider papers from any of the social sciences. Papers from other disciplines (e.g., law) will be considered only if they provide a key policy contribution, and are written in a style which is accessible to a social science readership.