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An economywide, multimarket model is constructed for Ghana and the effects ofagricultural soil erosion on crop yields are explicitly modeled at the subnational regional level foreight main staple crops. The model is used to evaluate the aggregate economic costs of soilerosion by taking into account economywide linkages between production and consumption,across sectors and agricultural subsectors. To fill a gap in the literature regarding economic costanalysis of soil erosion, this paper also analyzes the poverty implications of land degradation. Themodel predicts that land degradation reduces agricultural income in Ghana by a total of US$4.2billion over the period 2006–2015, which is approximately five percent of total agricultural GDPin these ten years. The effect of soil loss on poverty is also significant at the national level,equivalent to a 5.4 percentage point increase in the poverty rate in 2015 compared to the case ofno soil loss. Moreover, soil loss causes a slowing of poverty reduction over time in the threenorthern regions, which currently have the highest poverty rates in the country.Sustainable land management (SLM) is the key to reducing agricultural soil loss. Thepresent findings indicate that through the adoption of conventional SLM practices, the decliningtrend in land productivity can be reversed, and that use of a combination of conventional andmodern SLM practices would generate an aggregate economic benefit of US$6.4 billion over theperiod 2006–2015. SLM practices would therefore significantly reduce poverty in Ghana,particularly in the three northern regions.
