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sensitivity to that exposure. Household-level vulnerability is most often asso- ciated with threats to livelihoods. Livelihoods can be inadequate because of resource constraints and low productivity (e.g., farmers with too little land and no access to fertilizer) or because farmers operate in a risky environment (e.g., droughts that cause harvest failure). Potential impacts of climate change on vulnerability to food insecurity
include both direct nutritional effects (changes in consumption quantities and composition) and livelihood effects (changes in employment opportunities and the cost of acquiring adequate nutrition). Climate change can affect each of these dimensions. This monograph focuses on the productivity effects of climate change that translate into changes in calorie availability and to effects on child malnutrition. At this point the methodology and data to provide quantitative estimates of livelihood vulnerability are not available. In some countries, calorie availability declined even though incomes were
rising faster than food prices. This occurred almost exclusively in the pessimis- tic scenario that assumed low growth or declines in GDP per capita and high population growth. This outcome was driven by declining consumption of the key staple foods, which in turn was driven by high own-price elasticities in conjunction with low income elasticities for these staples. Table 2.6 shows mean kilocalorie consumption per person per day from the
IMPACT model for the year 2000, which is based on data from the FAO data- bases. We focused on the four leading sources of calories and the two leading meats. Rice and cassava were almost tied, closely followed by millet and sor- ghum, which were also nearly tied.
TABLE 2.6 Mean calorie consumption in West Africa, 2000 Food
Beef
Poultry Rice
Cassava Millet
Sorghum All foods
Kilocalories per person per day 14 6
316 304 273 272
2,464 Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from FAOSTAT.