Climate Change and Hunger: Estimating Costs of Adaptation in the Agrifood System

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Projections show that climate change slows progress toward eliminating hunger. An additional 78 million people will face chronic hunger in 2050 relative to a no-climate-change future, over half of whom are in Africa south of the Sahara. Increased investments can offset these impacts. Achieving this would require that annual investment in international agricultural research increase from $1.62 billion to $2.77 billion per year between 2015 and 2050. Additional water and infrastructure investments are estimated to be more expensive than agricultural research and development at about $12.7 billion and $10.8 billion per year, respectively, but these address key gaps to support transformation toward food system resiliency. Findings on ranges of costs and trade-offs and complementarities across Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will help policymakers make better-informed choices between alternative investment strategies.

This report by IFPRI assesses the cost of adaptation to climate change across a range of future climate scenarios and investment options. Offsetting the effects of climate change on global hunger may be achieved through investment in agricultural research, water management and rural infrastructure in developing countries. This report links climate, crop, water and economic models to analyze scenarios of future change in the agriculture sector to 2050 and assess trade-offs for these investments across key SDGs for poverty, hunger and water.

This report was authored by Timothy B. Sulser (IFPRI), Keith Wiebe (IFPRI), Shahnila Dunston (IFPRI), Nicola Cenacchi (IFPRI), Alejandro Nin-Pratt (IFPRI), Daniel Mason-D’croz (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), Richard Robertson (IFPRI), Dirk Willenbockel (Institute of Development Studies) and Mark W. Rosegrant (IFPRI).