Why do global long-term scenarios for agriculture differ? An overview of the AgMIP Global Economic Model Intercomparison
Open accessAbstract
Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long-term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of “real world commodity prices” differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between −0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro-economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross-fertilize analyses at different scales.
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Self-citation
- Authors
- von Lampe, M., Willenbockel, D., Ahammad, H., Blanc, E., Cai, Y., Calvin, K., Fujimori, S., Hasegawa, T., Havlik, P., Heyhoe, E., Kyle, P., Lotze-Campen, H., Mason d'Croz, D., Nelson, G. C., Sands, R. D., Schmitz, C., Tabeau, A., Valin, H., van der Mensbrugghe, D., & van Meijl, H.
- Affiliations
- Trade and Agriculture Directorate (TAD); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); 2 rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16 France
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (AU)
- Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 77 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge MA 02139-4307 USA
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Joint Global Change Research Institute (US)
- National Institute for Environmental Studies (JP)
- Ecosystems Services and Management Program; International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); Schlossplatz 1, 2361 Laxenburg Austria
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Telegrafenberg A 31 14473 Potsdam Germany
- International Food Policy Research Institute; Washington DC 20006 USA
- International Food Policy Research Institute (US)
- Economic Research Service (US)
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (DE)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
- Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESAD); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Viale delle Terme di Caracalla Roma 00153 Italy
- Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI); Wageningen University and Research Centre, 2585 DB The Hague; Netherlands
- ORCID
- Venue
- Agricultural Economics
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2013-12-02
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-20
- ISSN
- 0169-5150 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1992135847
- Cited by
- 270
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 10
- FWCI
- 67.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- research.wur.nl
- Locations
- Agricultural Economics (publishedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- IFPRI E-brary (International Food Policy Research Institute) (submittedVersion)
- CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- International Food Policy Research Institute (International Food Policy Research Institute) (submittedVersion)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economics of Agriculture and Food Markets
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Climate change impacts on agriculture
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Agricultural economics and policies
- Keywords
- AgMIP, global economic model, model intercomparison, agricultural commodity prices, food security, climate change scenarios, socio-economic scenarios, price elasticity, income elasticity, model assumptions, agricultural markets
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