How climate change is impacting the major yield crops of Pakistan? an exploration from long- and short-run estimation.

Abstract

This research attempts to evaluate the linkage among climatic change factors such as average temperature and rainfall patterns and non-climatic factors such as the area under major yield crops, fertilizer consumption, and formal credit on major food crop yield from 1985 to 2016 in Pakistan. For the first step, we checked the stationarity of the series by utilizing the unit root tests. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was employed to identify the linkages between variables after verifying the properties over a specific period of time. The consequences of this study confirmed the long-run association between climatic and non-climatic factors to the major food crop yield in Pakistan. Furthermore, the outcomes of the study revealed that temperature has a diverse impact on major food crop yields. Whereas, the area under major food crops, average rainfall, fertilizer consumption, and formal credit have a positive impact on major food crop yield in Pakistan. For the second step, we used the Granger causality test to verify the causal linkage for the variables. The outcomes reveal a significant effect of climatic and non-climatic factors on major food crop yield. The bidirectional causality causal associations are found to be significant among variables including average temperature, fertilizer consumption, and formal credit disbursement. The empirical results further indicated that major food crop yields are more affected by climatic factors such as average temperature as compared to non-climatic factors. Based on the study findings, few recommendations are made to cope with factors of climate change. Invent such agricultural-specific adaptation policies for farmers which possess the ability and resilience to tackle climate change. Research and development in agriculture should focus on major varieties of food crops that can endure high temperatures. The agriculture industry will be able to sustain long-term production and distribution efficiency attributable to these strategies.