Research Seminars @ Illinois

Speaker Protensia Hadunka - The Impact of Pest Shocks on Charcoal Production and Deforestation in Zambia

Event Type

Seminar/Symposium

Sponsor

Practice Job Talk - PERE (Program in Environmental & Resource Economics)

Location

426 Mumford Hall

Virtual

Date

Oct 21, 2024   12:00 - 1:00 pm  

Speaker

Protensia Hadunka, PhD Student, UIUC Dept. ACE

Views

13

Originating Calendar

ACE Seminars

Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is home to some of the world's highest rates of deforestation. One driver may be negative agricultural shocks that drive households to consume natural resources as a coping mechanism. This paper uses primary household panel data from Zambia to estimate the effect of introducing an agricultural pest, fall armyworms (FAW), on charcoal production. I exploit exogenous variation in the intensity of exposure to FAW across households and years to identify their effect. I find a positive and significant effect of FAW on charcoal production and deforestation. The estimates indicate that having FAW in the village increases the probability of a farmer producing charcoal by 3.48 percentage points, from 22 percent to 25 percent, leading to an increase in deforestation of 13.6 percent. The results also indicate that when methods to mitigate FAW damage are available, farmers are less likely to resort to charcoal production as a coping strategy. Having the ability to reduce the share of maize, diversify the crops produced, use pesticides, or migrate for off-farm employment are associated with a lower propensity to switch to charcoal production in response to FAW. Farmers' coping strategies in response to FAW attacks reduce charcoal production by 15 to 80 kg during an invasion.