Effect of climate change on maize yield in Western Ethiopia

• Published in: Cogent business & management 2025-12, Vol.12 (1)
• Main Authors: Saketa, Wondimu, Haji, Jema, Komicha, Hussien H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ARDL model; Climate change; maize; Production Economics; Western Ethiopia
• ISSN: 2331-1975; 2331-1975
• DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2024.2447910

The main objective of the study was to examine trends of maize yield and climate change variables and assess the effect of climate change variables on maize yield in the study area. The data were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen’s slope estimator to describe the trends of maize yield and climate change variables and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to estimate the effect of climate change on maize yield. The result of the Bound co-integration test shows that, there is only short-run relationship between the maize yield and rainfall, average minimum and maximum temperature. The finding of the study shows that the average maize yields of western Ethiopia was 29.13 quintals for the last 33 years. The results of the ARDL model revealed that an increase in rainfall has a positive and significant effect on maize yield at 10% significance level and average annual minimum temperature has also a positive and significant effect on maize yield at 5% significance level. Therefore, the government should strengthen its effort to implement the green economy strategy to reduce possible effect of change in annual rainfall, average minimum and maximum temperature on maize yield to enhance agricultural productivity and improve the food insecurity of farm households in Ethiopia.