Any Rain on Victoria Lake Is Only a Drop in the Bucket: A CGE Analysis of the Effects of Water Shortages on Food Security in Uganda

Using a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of Uganda, we simulate the effects of water shortages and their impact on agricultural production and the broader Ugandan economy. It is expected that Ugandan crop production will be hit hard over the next forty years by increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitation associated with climate change. We use forecasts from the literature for ten specific crop outputs to simulate the effects of weather-related agricultural disruption on the rest of the economy. We are particularly interested in the effects on food security in Uganda. We find that Uganda is far from being food secure, and hypothesize that if the pessimistic forecasts from the literature were to become true, then the situation would deteriorate significantly. The adaptation strategies for Uganda should focus on the following: the country should diversify agricultural production to include more hardy crops; build transport infrastructure to improve access to the available food to all citizens, but also to enable the expansion of the manufacturing industry, which is dependent on trade between regions; improve sanitation conditions significantly in both rural and urban areas, and develop water infrastructure so that households and agricultural industries can gain better access to an increasingly scarce resource.