Long-Term Scenarios for Sub-Saharan Africa’s Agro-Food Markets with Varying Population, Income and Crop Productivity Trends

Abstract

This study develops long-term scenarios combining trends in population numbers, incomes, and crop productivity for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) up to 2050 by using a recursive-dynamic version of the GTAP general equilibrium model. Results suggest that crop productivity will have a major impact on cropland expansion in SSA, giving potentially available cropland the role of a buffer that could smooth differences between future production outcomes. Another inherent smoothing factor will be countervailing trends in population and income growth that will diminish future differences in food commodity consumption per capita and limit the impact of African trends in the rest of the world.