Analysis of climate change effects on food security in egypt using impact model

Abstract EN

There is an international consensus that climate change poses an imminent threat to development around the world.

Egypt is not an exception; without a doubt, global warming has put Egypt among the countries that climate change is affected.

Therefore, it has become necessary for Egypt to integrate plans of adaptation into its development strategies to overcome or cope with or limit the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

Consequently, this study analyses the potential economic and social impacts induced by the deterioration of weather conditions on economic growth and food security in Egypt.

Accordingly, the study was based on The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT); the IMPACT model system is a network of linked models.

The main components include climate models, crop models, and water models.

The results show that climate change will reduce aggregate food production between -3% (2030) -3.8% (2050).

Furthermore, it will lead to a rise in the general level of prices, which leads to a decrease in per capita food consumption (KCAL per capita per day) by around -1.7% and -3.8% during 2030 and 2050, respectively.

In conclusion, this increases hunger (millions of people at risk) by 0.017% on average 2030-2050.

Finally, the study recommends that Egyptian policymakers need to develop adaptive measures to address the potential impacts of climate change that induced agricultural productivity losses; such as providing climate-smart crop varieties (i.e., those that are resistant to heat and drought) to farmers, improving agricultural practices and educating farmers to shift from crops that are profoundly impacted by climate change to those that are not.

Also, the agricultural sector needs more investment to improve productivity.