Heterogeneous effects of climate and socioeconomic factors on wheat and maize production in Madhya Pradesh, India: evidence from Just and Pope production function

Changes in the effects of climate on agricultural yield are becoming common in the literature. The present study investigated how both climatic and socioeconomic variables affect means and variations in crop yield. We examined factors that affect the yields of two major crops, wheat and maize, cultivated in different seasons in Madhya Pradesh, India. For empirical analysis, we employed the Just and Pope production function, covering the period from 1999 to 2017 based on the latest district-level available data of Madhya Pradesh. An increase in rainfall enhanced the mean yield of both crops in Central India, showing the yield of these crops is highly dependent on rainfall. Average temperature and number of extreme cold days adversely affected the wheat yield in the region. Furthermore, an increase in fertilizer consumption raised mean crop yield, but it was not uniform, because this leads to an increase in variation of crop yields. The findings also confirmed the presence of an inverted ‘U’-shaped relationship between the mean maize yield and rainfall. However, there was a ‘U’ shaped relationship between mean wheat yield and temperature. Surprisingly, irrigation showed a differential impact on mean yield in different seasons. Normally, irrigation is a risk reducing input and diminishes variance in yields. These results provide policy insights to state and local governments for adaptation measures against climate change to protect the mean yield and control variations in yield of these major crops in the central part of India.