Heterogeneous impacts of climate change on crop yields across altitudes in Ethiopia

Tsegaye Ginbo

doi:10.1007/s10584-022-03306-1

Abstract

Impacts of climate change can differ from one region to another. We combine the household-level panel data with weather and climate data to examine the heterogeneity of the impacts of climate change on crop yields across different crops and agro-ecologies in Ethiopia. Our results show that climate change will induce an increase in coffee and teff yields by 31% and 8.3%, respectively, at high altitudes by the years 2041–2060 compared to 1988–2018, under a medium emissions scenario. Conversely, it will reduce coffee yield by 3% at low altitudes, and barley, maize, and wheat yield by 22.7%, 48%, and 10%, respectively, at high altitudes. These findings suggest that tailoring agricultural development programs and climate adaptation strategies to address location and crop-specific sensitivity to climate change may help to build resilience and improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers.

Highlights

Climate change is likely to have different impacts on agriculture in different agro-ecological locations
Our results indicate that farmers’ adoption of irrigation practices increases the mean yield of coffee at low altitudes whereas its effect is statistically insignificant at high altitudes
Under a medium emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5), results indicate that coffee yield decreases by about 3% at low altitude whereas there is a 31% increase at high altitudes due to climate change over 2041–2060 relative to 1988–2018

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is likely to have different impacts on agriculture in different agro-ecological locations. Differences in altitudes can characterize differences in climatic factors, in particular temperature and precipitation, and their rate of change. The influences of climatic change, especially an increase in temperature, can differ in cooler (high altitude) areas compared to warmer (low altitude) areas (see, e.g., Läderach et al 2017; Moat et al 2017; Ovalle-Rivera et al 2015; Rahn et al 2018). Ethiopia has been experiencing the consequences of climatic changes including high temperature and more frequent droughts and floods (Danyo et al 2017; World Bank 2021). Recurrent droughts and flooding have caused a significant damage to the Ethiopian agriculture in particular and the overall economy in general (see, e.g., Danyo et al 2017)

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