The Impact of Climate Change on Select Agricultural Production in a Water Scarce Country

Abstract

The impact of rainfall and temperature on agriculture production has become increasingly pertinent due to mounting concerns regarding food security and the impact of climate change. The study uses both linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models to simulate the impact that that climate variability has on agriculture production. Data on rainfall and temperature patterns are regressed on the disaggregated agricultural output, focusing on vegetable, root crop and milk production. Significant asymmetric effects were not evident with respect to the climatic impact of rain and temperature on total crop or root crop production. However, when rainfall is below its seasonal average, milk production is negatively impacted. The positive long-run influence of temperature is slightly smaller on vegetable production, in periods when temperature levels are above the seasonal average. Root crop production was found to be comparatively resistant to climate change.