CCAFS Science Meeting presentation by Mario Herrero - "Household modeling for ex-ante evaluation and targeting of climate smart agriculture"

1. Household modeling for ex-ante
evaluation and targeting of climate
smart agriculture
Mario Herrero
CCAFS Science Meeting, Copenhagen, May 2012

2. This work involves many others
At ILRI: Mariana Rufino, Mark van Wijk, Carlos Quiros
CCAFS theme leaders: Philip Thornton (funding/strategy),
Jim Hansen, Lini Wollenberg, Andy Jarvis
CCAFS Regional Coordinators (funding): James Kinyangi
(EA), Robert Zougmore (WA), Pramod Aggarwal (SA)
CG centres: IWMI, ICRISAT, CIMMYT, ICRAF (for now)
Universities and Research Centres: Wageningen,
Hohenheim, Tasmania, Oregon, Washington State (for now)

3. Background
CCAFS engaged heavily in analysing regional and global
impacts on agriculture and exploring future pathways of
agricultural development through scenario analysis
Considerable work on adaptation and mitigation practices at a
local level
Ex-ante assessment and targeting: what might work where
and how this might change depending on the notions of the
future
Household modelling: offers the possibility of helping with
these issues.
A well established area, large community of scientists

4. Systems and livelihoods in transition: the target is moving!
Can we ensure that the next transition is sustainable, equitable and helps
feed the world?
W. Africa 1966 – pastoral system 2004 – crop-livestock system

5. A game of winners and losers…at all scales
Simulated percentage maize production changes to 2030 and 2050, by
country and system
Mixed Mixed Mixed
National rainfed rainfed rainfed
Production temperate humid arid
2030 2050 2030 2050 2030 2050 2030 2050
Burundi 9.1 9.1 14.4 18.1 -1.8 -8.8 - -
Kenya 15.0 17.8 33.3 46.5 -4.6 -9.8 -1.1 -8.4
Rwanda 10.8 14.9 13.4 18.8 5.4 3.6 1.1 2.7
Tanzania -3.1 -8.1 7.5 8.7 -1.6 -6.4 -5.1 -11.1
Uganda -2.2 -8.6 4.9 3.1 -4.6 -12.9 -1.1 -6.3
Mean of 4 combinations of GCM and emissions scenario
Winners
Losers
Thornton et al. (2010)

6. Understanding complex systems
Herrero et al, Science (2010)

7. Monthly calendar of different activities of the system
Wa, Upper West, Ghana
Dry Rainy Dry Weather calendar
Groundnuts
Yams Cropping calendar
Sorghum
Cut & Crop
Critical Grazing Feeding calendar
Carry residue
Food security
Energy Prot. & Ene. Family’s
deficit deficit nutrition
High Very High High Lo High
Low Low Cash demands
high
w
J F M A M J J A S O N D Gonzalez-Estrada et al. 2006

8. There are always trade-offs
Different practices…
Different farming systems….
income
1
0.5
external inputs food security
0
water use GHG
mixed
pastoral

9. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
What’s the likely impact of alternative
interventions?
Plot Crop
Homestead Enset, coffee, kale, sweet potato, maize
Plot1 Maize
Plot 2 Sweet potato, wheat
Plot 3 Maize
Plot 4 Sweet potato
Plot 5 Barley
Plot 6 Maize
Plot 7 Unimproved pasture
Livestock: 1 cow, 1 ox Profit: Birr 2,381/yr

10. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
Current
management
Food security
Cow feeding
Labour/capital
Cash
Soil fertility
Critical Adequate

11. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
Intervention 1 Application of fertilizer to
Food crop maize plots.
Food security
Cow feeding
Labour/capital
Cash
Soil fertility
Critical Adequate

12. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
Intervention 2 Replace native grassland
Feed crop with improved pasture.
Food security
Cow feeding
Labour/capital
Cash
Soil fertility
Critical Adequate

13. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
Intervention 3 Introduction of cowpea in
Food/feed crop the system.
Food security
Cow feeding
Labour/capital
Cash
Soil fertility
Critical Adequate

14. Site: Sodo, Ethiopia
Intervention 4 Subsidy for barley
Food crop production
Food security
Cow feeding
Labour/capital
Cash
Soil fertility
Critical Adequate

15. Adaptation, risk management and
mitigation options will depend largely
on how we shape the world
• Several options exist though largely dependent on our
vision of world development and how it plays out in
different regions
• essential to link household modelling to scenarios of
change
• Different paradigms of agricultural development
(industrial vs pro-poor smallholders, large vs family
farms)
• Globalisation and trade patterns
• Consumption patterns
• Carbon constraints
• Roles and incentives for technology adoption
• Growth in other sectors
• Power relationships

16. Linking research at different levels
Global visioning Global impacts
activities
Global Scenarios modelling
Participatory Regional Scenarios Regional impacts
scenario building modelling
Household &
Action research
Farmer/village community
perspectives impacts modelling
Thornton et al 2012

17. Ex-ante analysis and targeting of
options
• Studying livelihoods transitions
• Targeting the vulnerable (winners and losers)
• Which options could fit in which systems under which
conditions?
• How upscalable to broader recommendation
domains/regions?
• How robust are options across scenarios and farming
systems
• Priority setting for investments (how many farmers, what
areas, how much?)
• Mitigation / adaptation synergies

18. CCAFS activities in relation to
household modelling

19. Household data collection in the CCAFS
sites
• Development of simplified, but robust and standard
data collection protocols
• Collecting detailed information from representative
farming systems from the CCAFS sites
• 150-200 households per site: approx 3000 surveys
• Data collection during 2012
• Statistical analysis and modelling of adaptation, risk
management and mitigation options from 2012
(with input from centres and themes)
• Funded by Theme 4 and the regions

20. CCAFS sites in West Africa, East Africa and South Asia
All survey materials and data at ccafs.cgiar.org/resources/baseline-surveys
Dataverse at dvn.iq.harvard.edu
Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network at amkn.org

21. Data collection +
household modeling
protocol :
 Climate
 Family
structure/gender
 Land management
Livestock
management
 Labour allocation
Family’s dietary
pattern
Farm’sHerrero et al 2007
sales and
expenses, income

22. A review of farm household modelling
with a focus on climate change
• A systematic review of 16000
thousand references
• Covered long term adaptation, risk
mangement and mitigation
• Covered diverse modelling
techniques (LP, agent based
models, simulation, others)
• Identification of useful tools for
CCAFS work
• Integrated models using more than
one modelling technique more
suitable for CC questions
• Engagement with other modellers

23. Workshop: Farm-household Modeling with a focus on
Food security, Climate change adaptation, Risk
management and Mitigation: a way forward
Amsterdam, The Netherlands 23 to 25 April 2012
• Goal: to identify current potential of and weaknesses in farm-
and household-level models, and laying out practical
pathways to improve these models to address CCFAS systems
questions

24. Conclusions from the workshop
• Modelling approaches are available to address household-level
questions. This needs to include higher levels of integration to
capture key drivers.
• It is possible to analyze household-level questions related to climate
change in a reasonable short time (6 months to 1 year) span with
the existing tools.
• Activities to develop repositories for models and data are urgently
needed to increase further development of models and make
better use of existing knowledge.
• A team of modellers with different expertise is needed to address
questions related to climate change agriculture and food security.
• The research questions must lead to the suite of models and
expertise needed. Not much model development is needed.

25. Next steps
• Continue the data collection in the regions
• Develop suitable databases and repositories for the
information for open access by CCAFS and partners
• Data analyses
• Linking with the international household modelling
teams to prepare potential tools for analysis
• Extensions to community-level modelling
• Maybe fund some additional development as
needed

26. Conclusions
• Household modelling can play a key role in the ex-
ante evaluation and targeting of adaptation and
mitigation work of CCAFS
• It can help link work at multiple-scales: for example
the scenarios work in the regions to impacts and
options in different types of farming systems
• It can lead to robust multi-centre and multi-theme
work by exploiting complementary skills to solve
complex problems
• ….and provide realistic, sometimes simplified,
answers

27. Thank you