Green Agriculture and Human Development for Achieving Environmental Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa

The promotion of sustainable agricultural practices is crucial for achieving environmental sustainability. Moreover, there is limited documentation on how green agriculture moderates the impact of the pursuit of human development on environmental sustainability. Consequently, this study aims to examine the impact of green agriculture and human development on the ecological footprint across 31 African countries from 1996 to 2022. To this end, we employ dynamic panel regression techniques from Kripfganz & Schwarz (2019), instrumental variable regression, and quantile regression to account for heteroscedasticity, endogeneity, and conditional heterogeneity. The findings reveal that green agriculture increases the ecological footprint, as does human development. However, this increase occurs at a decreasing rate for green agriculture and at an increasing rate for the pursuit of human development. Furthermore, the attenuated magnitude of the interaction coefficient suggests that the practice of green agriculture mitigates the adverse impact of human development efforts on environmental sustainability. Additionally, Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality results confirm a bidirectional causal relationship between green agriculture and the ecological footprint. The proactive effect between human development and the ecological footprint is also validated. To enhance environmental sustainability, policymakers should promote and mainstream green agricultural practices through awareness campaigns.