Review on the Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production in Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper reviews the impact of climate change on crop production in Ethiopia. The rainfall variability has significant and negative impact on outputs of crop agriculture in Ethiopia. When the annual rainfall diverges from its mean (both upward and downward), the level of production of all crop types diminished significantly. When there is extreme rainfall, the impact of fertilizer to boost productivity has diminished. This paper also  reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty. Few global-scale assessments have been carried out, and these are limited in their ability to capture the uncertainty in climate projections, and omit potentially important aspects such as extreme events and changes in pests and diseases. The dependence of some regional agriculture on remote rainfall, snow melt and glaciers adds to the complexity. Indirect impacts via sea-level rise, storms and diseases have not been quantified. Perhaps most seriously, there is high uncertainty in the extent to which the direct effects of CO₂ rise on plant physiology will interact with climate change in affecting productivity. At present, the aggregate impacts of climate change on global-scale agricultural productivity cannot be reliably quantified. Other factors such as area, demand for crop production (private consumption) and labor force have affected crop production significantly. Since climate change is an inevitable phenomenon, policy makers should introduce adaptation measures to sustain the economic growth observed in the last few years.

Keywords: agricultural productivity, climate change, crop production, rain fall variability