Crop Yield Sensitivity to Climatic Variability as the Basis for Creating Climate Resilient Agriculture

Abstract

Climate change and variability are presenting challenges to the agricultural sector as well as agricultural sustainability in Zimbabwe. This paper was aimed at investigating the impacts of climate change and variability on maize, sorghum and groundnut production in the Buhera district of Zimbabwe. The paper specifically determined the climatic scenarios in Buhera and how crop production is sensitive to them. Temperature and rainfall data used were obtained from the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department. Crop yield data for maize, sorghum and groundnuts were obtained from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Extension Buhera District office. The Mann-Kendall Trend test was then used to determine if there were significant changes in the precipitation and temperature scenarios at Buhera weather station. Before performing the Mann- Kendall test, the time series data were first tested for auto-correlation...