Climate Change, Growth in Agriculture Value Added, Food Availability and Economic Growth Nexus in the Gambia: A Granger Causality and ARDL Modeling Approach

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to test empirically the direction of causality between climate changes, agriculture valued added, food production (proxy food availability), and economic growth in the Gambia. This study employed annual data, which was collected for the period 1960-2017, and analyzed this data using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and the Granger causality framework. The empirical evidence shows that the following: (1) the short run and long run ARDL model confirmed that the growth of fish production and growth of livestock production in the Gambia have significant positive impacts on the growth of GDP. (2) The short run and long run ARDL model indicated that growth of food import and growth of agriculture have negative impacts on the growth of GDP. (3) Granger causality analysis between the lagged values of growth of GDP and lagged values of growth of food availability indicators has unidirectional relationships. (4) Lagged values of the growth of GDP Granger causes lagged values of growth of agriculture but lagged values of growth of agriculture does not Granger cause lagged values of growth of GDP, which suggested an indirect relationship. (5) The relationship between the lagged values of growth of crop production and lagged values of growth of agriculture indicates a bidirectional relationship. Finally, important indication is established on the role of fish production, livestock production, climate change, and crop production to control food availability and economic growth in the Gambia.