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The changes in the effects of temperature and rainfall on cereal crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa: a country level panel data study,1989 to 2004

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/7344/
 
Title The changes in the effects of temperature and rainfall on cereal crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa: a country level panel data study,1989 to 2004
 
Creator Tsusaka, T W
Otsuka, K
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
Climate change
 
Description The harsh agro-climatic endowment is among a host of factors underlying the absence of a Green Revolution in Sub-
Saharan Africa (SSA) since high-yielding agricultural technologies tend to be resource-demanding and thus applicable
only to agro-ecologically favorable production environments. While in Asia some empirical studies indicate that the
climate sensitivity of major cereal crops has begun to be mitigated and there are now both resource-demanding and
resource-efficient types of technologies adopted, in SSA almost no such evidence has empirically been reported to date.
This paper uniquely examines the changes over time in the effects of climatic conditions on cereal crop yields in Sub-
Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2004. Using a 16-year country-wise panel dataset, the yield equations for five major crops
(wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, and millet) are estimated by a combination of two-way fixed effect and sample selection
models. It is found that the temperature effect was mitigated for maize and aggravated for millet, whereas the rainfall
dependency declined for rice and was augmented for wheat and maize. The results suggest that changes in technologies
and other supplementary factors contributed to the changes in agro-climate effects, though the directions of changes are
different for different crops, depending on the type of adopted technologies. In addition, on average during the period
under study, the temperature effects on cereal yields are generally negative while the rainfall effects are positive except
for sorghum and millet.
 
Date 2013
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/7344/1/EnvEco_4_2_70-80_%202013.pdf
Tsusaka, T W and Otsuka, K (2013) The changes in the effects of temperature and rainfall on cereal crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa: a country level panel data study,1989 to 2004. Environmental Economics, 4 (2). pp. 70-80.