Empirical analysis of climate change factors affecting cereal yield: evidence from Turkey

This research has examined the dynamic linkages among climate change factors, such as CO₂ emissions, temperature, rainfall, and cereal yield in Turkey from 1968 to 2014. At first step, we tested stationary properties of the climatic factors and crop yield by using both traditional and breakpoint unit root tests. After the confirmation of given properties, we used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to capture the dynamic relationship among the variables in the given span of time. The empirical results show that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship that exists between climate change factors and cereal yield. CO₂ emissions and average temperature have a diverse effect on the cereal yield, whereas average rainfall has a positive effect on the cereal yield in both the long run and short run. To check the causality, we use the Granger causality test that reveals a significant effect of climate change variables on the cereal yield. The unidirectional causal link is significant among temperature and rainfall factors. The results show that the cereal yield is affected by more climate factors like rain fall and temperature due to CO₂ emissions as compared to land and labor use. Based on the findings of the study, few suggestions have been made to address the climate change factors. Devise agriculture-specific adaptation policy for the farmers to build their capacity and resilience to tackle climate changes, for example, farm practices. Agriculture research and development should work on cereal crop varieties that can tolerate the high temperature and precipitation. These policies could help the agriculture sector to sustain production and allocation efficiency in the long run.