Economic impacts of climate change on maize production in the sub-humid and semi arid areas of Tanzania
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Date
2015
Authors
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Climate change is the cause of most weather related externalities. Its effects arc more
evident on the environment, food security, human health, human settlements, economic
activities, natural resources and physical infrastructure. This study assessed the economic
impacts of climate change with a special focus on maize production. It examined the role
of socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics in determining maize net revenue, the
marginal impact of changes in climate variables and projected climate change impact on
net revenue from maize enterprise due to future changes in climate in the sub-humid and
semi-arid areas of Tanzania. The study utilized cross-sectional household data collected
by the National Bureau of Statistics under its National Panel Survey in 2011/2012 from
which 323 households were randomly sampled. Both descriptive and econometric
methods were used to analyze the data. The Ricardian model was employed to assess the
impact of climate change on maize production and in the model net revenue per hectare
was regressed against a set of climate variables, socio-economic and biophysical variables
using a two stage least square estimation method so as to address the problem of
correlation between the dependent variable error term and the independent variables for
the sub humid and semi-arid areas and across all farms. Results from the analysis
indicated that household size and education of the household head positively impacted net
farm return from maize production. Also it revealed that temperature and rainfall (p <
0.01) will negatively impact net revenue. Basing on the CM1P5 for Tanzania using the
Mid-Century Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 the predicted future
climate change will adversely impact net revenue from maize production in the sub-
humid and semi-arid areas of Tanzania by the year 2050. Therefore investing in new
technologies and adequate extension information services are recommended from this
study so as to increase farmers' adaptive capacity to reduce the impact of climate change
on maize production.
Description
Master of science in agricultural and applied economics
Keywords
Climate change- maize production, Maize production, Sub-humid-Tanzania, semi arid-Tanzania