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Mobile phone adoption, deforestation, and agricultural land use in Uganda

Published Article

Africa

Publication date: April 8, 2024

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Mobile phone adoption in rural Uganda is linked to rising deforestation: a 1% increase in phone‑owning households corresponds to 1.2% more forest loss. New phone users expand crop areas by 8%, especially non‑farm households. This shift reduces carbon storage, showing how tech access can drive environmental pressure.

Subject Tags

  • Carbon storage
  • Policy, Finance, and Markets

Abstract

Increased access to information technology changes economic opportunities and may indirectly lead to changes in rural households’ land use and the local natural environment. With the expansion of service coverage and decreasing cost of mobile phone service plans, particularly in Africa, it is critical to understand the implications of the rapid uptake of mobile phones on the environment. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between mobile phone adoption and deforestation in rural areas of Uganda over the 2009 to 2013 period. We exploit heterogeneity in household adoption of mobile phones using four rounds of the Uganda National Panel Survey (2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013). We find that a 1% increase in the share of households owning a mobile phone is associated with a 1.2% increase in deforestation within a 5-kilometer radius of these households. At the household level, those acquiring a mobile phone see an average of 8% increase in crop cultivation area, driven by households whose main source of income is not agricultural production. These results suggest that mobile phone adoption may lead to sizeable adverse impacts on the environment via an expansion of crop cultivation areas. The estimated increase in deforestation translates to approximately 16,000 tons of lost carbon storage over two years, valued between $3 and $11 million.

Citation

Jung, S. and Rogers, M., 2024. Mobile phone adoption, deforestation, and agricultural land use in Uganda. World Development, 179, p.106618.   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106618

TNC Authors