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Ensuring food security for the population is important for the quality of human capital to promote economic growth. Moreover, micro-credit can affect food security of the population, and the effect depends on the context; that is to say, being specific to countries and even regions within the same country. This paper investigates the role of micro-credit in attaining food security in Benin. The study makes use of the survey data from the 2017 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) of Benin. Two indicators, namely food consumption categories (poor, limit and acceptable) and food security classes (severe food insecurity, moderate food insecurity, limit food security and food security) are used to capture household food security. Owing to the ordered nature of the different categories of these two indicators, and the fact that access to micro-credit is not random and may be subject to selection bias (unobservable factors may affect financial inclusion), the paper relies on an extended ordered probit regression. In addition, the same type of model is used to investigate the effect of food purchase financing by micro-credit on food security. The findings show the endogenous nature of access to micro-credit, suggesting that the unobservable factors that increase the probability of having access to micro-credit reduce food consumption and increase food security. Moreover, the findings indicate that access to micro-credit has a positive effect on the food consumption categories, but the effect is negative on food security classes. For instance, access to micro-credit increases the likelihood of the household to have an acceptable food consumption and decreases that to have a limited food consumption and also that of a poor food consumption. In addition, using micro-credit for food purchases has a positive effect on food consumption categories and has no significant effect on food security. These findings suggest that policy-makers could intensify policies to improve access to micro-credit. In addition, ways in which households can stop diverting or reorienting micro-credit, as this sometimes negatively affects their food consumption category (poor) and their food security class (severity) could be examined. JEL Classifications: O12 and O16 Keywords: Micro-credit, food consumption, food security, endogenous treatment, extended ordered probit Contact author's email address: odilonboris@gmail.com, INTRODUCTION Food insecurity is one of the major concerns in low-income countries (Islam, Maitra, Pakrashi & Smyth 2016). Access to a quality diet is a necessary but not sufficient condition [...]

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This research aims at analysing the extent to which climate change affects cotton and cashew nuts production and exports in West African countries in the presence of intermediary market power. To that end, the paper uses a combination of approaches to calibrate a price endogenous regional bio-economic optimisation model and handles uncertainties inherent to future socioeconomic scenarios through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that the effects of climate change on cotton and cashew nuts land use are mixed under the two simulated climate change scenarios. In fact, the effects vary across countries, ranging from experiencing only a decline, or only an increase to both a decline and an increase in land use. Similarly, the effects of climate change on the quantities of cotton and cashew nuts exported are also mixed, with the positive effects being more pronounced for cotton. Simulations of reductions in the market power exerted by intermediaries on cotton producers also show that such a scenario could to some extent mitigate the negative effects of climate change on cotton exports for some countries. Therefore, actions that include corrections to cotton market imperfection could be undertaken to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on cotton and cashew nuts production in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To limit global warming, advocacy has increased in support of lowering greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, in agriculture, the use of compost and bio‐fertilizer is increasingly promoted. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating how sustainable agricultural policies may influence land use and farm income in the context of global climatic change. Thus, a mathematical programming model with a representative risk‐neutral and profit‐maximizing economic agent is applied, using survey data on 423 farmers in Togo, a West African country. The findings indicate that a combination of a subsidy and a credit policy appear to be the best incentive to promote the adoption of sustainable practices and to increase farm income. Therefore, a combination of subsidy and credit policy should be implemented to foster the adoption of sustainable practices and improve farmers' welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in climate conditions are expected to significantly alter food production patterns and increase food price volatility, leading to challenges for food and nutrition security. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which climate factors contribute to the volatility of maize price in Benin, using monthly data from 7 markets. To this end, an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean (ARCH-M) model is estimated. Mean and variance equations of monthly maize price are specified as functions of temperature, rainfall of the growing season and a set of control variables including a policy variable and the international price of maize with an ARCH(1) term in the variance equation. The findings from the mean equation suggest that rainfall has a negative effect on maize prices. Moreover, the estimation results from the variance equation indicate that rainfall and temperature are negatively associated with price volatility. Therefore, the findings indicate that climate change will affect maize price volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the vulnerability of farm-based livelihood systems to climate shocks in the Niger basin of Benin using a household survey dataset relative to the 2012–2013 agricultural year. The integrated approach is used to assess the vulnerability to climate shocks as function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, and the indices are used as a dependent variable in an Ordinary Least Squares regression. The results reveal that 57.43% of the farm households are vulnerable to climate shocks (31.74% are very vulnerable). The findings highlight that the lowest adaptive capacity does not necessarily coincide with highest exposure and sensitivity to result in the highest vulnerability. Social capital is very important in building the resilience of farm-based livelihood systems. Vulnerability of farm-based livelihoods depends on the nature of climate shocks. Indeed, the econometric estimations show that vulnerability levels increase differently with respect to the type of shock; the increase is 0.87, 0.77, 1.27, and 1.28 for droughts, strong winds, heat waves, and erratic rainfall, respectively. Floods appear to be beneficial to the farm households as they negatively influence vulnerability to climate shocks. The simulations suggest that vulnerability to climate shocks will increase in the absence of adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]