Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa

The study finds a significant negative relationship between local agricultural price indices and the risk of violent conflict in Africa. Using a meso-level approach with a spatial-temporal grid, the author argues that falling agricultural prices lower the opportunity costs for rural populations, thereby facilitating rebel recruitment and civilian support. The results suggest that negative price shocks have a more detrimental effect on conflict risk than positive shocks have a mitigating effect, supporting the 'opportunity cost' mechanism over the 'state capacity' explanation.

• Negative changes in the local agricultural price index significantly increase the risk of violent conflict events at the local level, while positive changes are associated with a lower risk.
• The impact of negative agricultural price shocks is more severe than the mitigating effect of positive shocks; a 30% decrease in the local agricultural price index increases the annual predicted probability of violence by 4.4% in absolute terms, whereas a 30% increase reduces it by approximately 0.4%.
• The conflict-inducing effects of negative price changes persist over time, with significant impacts observed in the years immediately following a price drop (lags t-1, t-2, and t-3).
• The evidence supports the 'opportunity cost' mechanism—where lower rural income increases incentives to join rebellions—over the 'state capacity' explanation, as the relationship is conditioned on local agricultural production patterns rather than general state revenue.
• The study found no evidence of a 'rapacity effect,' meaning that an increase in the economic value of agricultural output does not precipitate violence.
• Other significant predictors of armed conflict include the presence of politically excluded ethnic groups, higher local population size, and the occurrence of previous violence in the same or neighboring cells (conflict traps).

APA

Peace Research Institute Oslo (n.d.). Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/5f5b87b5-8868-44e0-9f64-090183aa25f5/Farming or Fighting Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Peace Research Institute Oslo. Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa. n.d. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/5f5b87b5-8868-44e0-9f64-090183aa25f5/Farming or Fighting Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Peace Research Institute Oslo |title=Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/5f5b87b5-8868-44e0-9f64-090183aa25f5/Farming or Fighting Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{peaceresearchinstituteoslondfarming, author = {{Peace Research Institute Oslo}}, title = {{Farming or Fighting? Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/5f5b87b5-8868-44e0-9f64-090183aa25f5/Farming or Fighting Agricultural Price Shocks and Civil War in Africa.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }