Sofie Waage Skjeflo defends her PhD Thesis “Climate change and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: Four approaches to modeling rural households”, Thursday January 29.

The thesis aims to increase our knowledge of how climate change affects agriculture and the welfare of households in developing countries, with empirical applications from Malawi and Tanzania. Focusing on yield changes in agriculture due to climate change by 2030, one of the papers in the thesis shows the importance of separating between net sellers and net buyers of food among Malawian households when targeting climate change adaptation policies. Households with large landholdings may in fact benefit from climate change due to higher food prices, while the majority of farmers and urban poor are vulnerable to climate change.

The thesis also focuses on impacts of extreme weather events, which are expected to become more frequent and severe due to climate change. A study of Tanzanian farm households shows that households to a certain extent are able to learn from past drought experiences to mitigate some of the impact on agricultural yields and children’s nutritional status when exposed to new droughts. A study from Malawi shows that poorer farm households to a greater extent grow crops that are less drought tolerant, and they are therefore more vulnerable to extreme events.

A contribution of the thesis is to show the importance of understanding the heterogeneity among rural households, and the characteristics and imperfections of the markets they interact through, when designing policies to adapt to climate change.

NMBU School of Economics and Business invites you to:
Public trial lecture and defense for Sofie Waage Skjeflo

Thursday January 29.2015  at 12.15 
Tower Buildng, Norwegian University of Life Scinecs, room T401

Title for the PhD Thesis:
"Climate change and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: Four approaches to modeling rural households".

Prescribed subject of the trial lecture:
"Climate Change and Development in Africa - The main challenges"

Supervisors:
Professor Stein Terje Holden (Main Supervisor)
Professor Knut Einar Rosendahl (Co Supervisor)

Evaluation committee:
Professor Ståle Navrud, School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences 
Professor Finn Tarp, University of Copenhagen
Senior Researcher Cathrine Hagem, SSB

Welcome!