Browsing by Subject "agriculture"

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    Capacity building in analytical tools for estimating and comparing costs and benefits of adaptation projects
    (2005) Nkomo, Jabavu C; Sparks, Debbie; Callaway, John M; Hellmuth, Molly; Louw, Daniel; Gomez, Bernard E; Jallow, Bubu P; Njie, Momodou; Droogers, Peter
    The broad objective of AIACC project 47 was to develop the capacity to estimate and compare the benefits and costs of projects in natural resource sectors that reduce the expected damages from climate change in Southern and West Africa. There are two parts to this project. The first consists of using well-established principles from economic benefit-cost analysis to develop a framework to estimate the economic benefits and costs associated with the expected climate change damages avoided by a development project that does not take climate change into account. Then, these benefits and costs can be compared to the case where planners incorporate expected climate change into the project assessment. The second part consists of demonstrating this methodology in two project case studies, one in The Gambia and the other in South Africa. The South African case study examines the benefits and costs of avoiding climate change damages through structural and institutional options for increasing water supply in the Berg River Basin in the Western Cape Province. The Gambian study, on the other hand, focuses on the agricultural sector, particularly on millet, the predominant crop in the country. To facilitate analysis, the Gambian study uses a detailed water–crop model, defines and explores adaptation strategies with the model and uses the results to carry out an economic analysis. The South African project develops and applies a Berg River Dynamic Spatial Equilibrium Model as a water planning and policy evaluation tool to compare benefits and costs and economic impacts of alternatives for coping with longterm water shortages due to climatic change. Results from the study will contribute to the development of international climate change policies and programs, particularly in regard to adaptation activities in developing countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
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    Fifty years of land use change in the Swartland Western Cape South Africa: characteristics causes and consequences
    (Taylor & Francis, 2013) Halpern, A B W; Meadows, M E
    The Swartland is a largely agricultural region situated to the north of the greater Cape Town metropolitan area in the Western Cape, South Africa, and is known to have been subject to significant land use changes over many decades. This fertile land lies within the winter rainfall region of the Western Cape and has been used intensively for agriculture since European colonial occupation from the mid-seventeenth century onwards. Historically, the most prominent land use in the region was grain production, although there has been a substantial shift among many commercial farms in the region towards wine grapes. Quantitative assessments of the nature and extent of such changes, their underlying causal factors or, indeed, their environmental and economic impacts are lacking. This study presents an extension and re-evaluation of previous work in the region that considered land use change and its environmental implications (Meadows, Rahlao, & Dietrich, 2006) with the aim of providing a more detailed description of land use change in the Swartland during the period from 1960 to 2010 and to explore possible causes and implications of the observed changes. Five comparable sets of sequential aerial photographs for the Philadelphia area that may be considered representative of the broader Swartland landscape are analysed. GIS techniques are used to quantify the land use changes and the results show a marked recent shift from grain to grape, as well as a general increase in urbanization. The underlying structural causes of such trends are discussed and their possible environmental consequences are explored.
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    Innovative Finance Week 1 Video 8 - Impact agriculture
    (2019) Ngoepe, Tsakane
    This video focuses on the theme of agriculture. We show that as the popuplation increases the demand fr food also increases, providing a big opportunity for investment. We also highlight that the smallholder frming households, estimated to be 450 million comprise of a large ortion that lives on less than $2 a day. whe show that this is an opportunity for private investment to improve livelihoods. This is video 8/11 in week 1 of the Innovative Finance: Hacking Finance to change the World course.
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    Long Term Mitigation Scenarios: Technical Appendix
    (2007) Energy Research Centre
    Demands for heat, processing energy, irrigation, tractors, harvesters and other energy needs (all in Peta Joules) are met through various technologies and fuel sources. Technologies using liquid fossil fuels (tractors, harvesters and pumps using diesel or petrol) are able to use a bio-fossil fuel blend. Tractors and harvesters are also able to run on pure bio-ethanol or bio-diesel for a case in which a farmer may be producing his own biofuel for use in farm vehicles. Demand for energy increases in time with respect to the agricultural GDP. Fuels come from refineries or mines, in the case of coal, and dummy boxes along fuel paths allow for accounting for each specific sector.