Effects of climate change on food security and inflation in Ghana

Abstract

This research investigated the topic of climate change, food safety, and inflation and Ghana for the period 1990 to 2022. The study utilized the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to explore the immediate and long-term impact of temperature and rainfall variation on the productivity of food production, represented by the Food Production Index (FPI), and inflation within the economy of Ghana. The empirical results from the ARDL model strongly suggested that increasing temperatures negatively impacted food production levels in Ghana significantly. The study also showed that there is a positive correlation between rainfall and agricultural output, indicating that rainfall is an important element of food production. Additionally, the study described the direct transmission channels by which climate influenced inflation. For example, falling food production due to climate-related shocks and increasing temperature caused the price of food to rise, impacting prices and leading to cost-push inflation in the general economy. The results of the study highlight the impact of climate change as a key driver of food security and price stability in Ghana. With Ghana's agriculture and food system being particularly sensitive to adverse weather events, the analysis of the results indicated that the variability of temperature and rainfall strongly affected the availability of food supply and inflation. As climate change continues to exert significant and expanding pressure on Ghana’s economy, this study recommends the urgent adoption of proactive and professionally implemented adaptive effect. A priority would be to improve the resilience and productivity of the agricultural sector, and to address food security and the stability of the macro-economy with respect to climate change and extreme weather events.