Juan Pablo Rud

Polluting Industries and Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Mining in Ghana

This paper examines the eect of polluting industries on agricultural productivity. The focus is on large-scale gold mining in Ghana which, similar to other fuel intensive activities, releases environmental pollutants with the potential to have negative eects on crop health and key agricultural inputs. Guided by a consumer-producer household framework, we estimate an agricultural production function that incorporates the eects of pollution. We nd that farmers located near gold mines experienced a reduction in total factor productivity of almost 40% between 1997 and 2005, relative to those farther away. Consistent with this result, we document higher concentrations of air pollutants and an increase in rural poverty near mines. We also explore whether mining could be aecting agricultural productivity in other ways, such as by reallocating workers or inducing changes in agricultural practices.