Crop Production, Livestock Production and Economic Growth in Botswana (1990-2017): An Application of ARDL Model

Abstract

There are few studies in Botswana which have examined the relationship between agriculture and economic growth. The uniqueness of this study is grounded in investigating disintegrated agriculture components into crop production and livestock production and investigating their nexus with economic growth. This study estimated the short and long term effects between crop production, livestock production and economic growth in Botswana for the period 1990 to 2017. The Auto-Regressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) bounds testing approach was employed to investigate the stated relationship. Study findings from the ARDL bound testing approach confirm evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between crop production, livestock production and economic growth. Results indicated that livestock production has a positive and significant impact on economic growth both in the short run and long run. On the other hand crop production has a positive and significant impact on economic growth only in the long run. Efforts towards supporting agricultural sector growth should be emphasized to promote agricultural sector productivity in a bid to forge a move away from dependence on imports of food in Botswana. To enhance economic growth, in both the short run and long run, the government of Botswana and all relevant stakeholders should invest in and promote livestock production. In the long term, policies that foster crop production are essential for economic growth.