Climate change, risk and food security: An analysis of wheat crop in Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change is a growing threat for humanity, while agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to this impending change. This study analyses the risk associated with wheat crop (staple food) due to climatic factors and its possible impacts on food security in Pakistan. As climate changes, it effects crop productivity and has heterogeneous impacts with respect to geographical locations. This concern led us to select geographical classification of wheat farming in Pakistan. To capture risk factor for wheat production, we employed Just and Pope (1978) production function using district-level disintegrated data of area, fertilizer, yield and climatic variables (temperature and precipitation) for wheat over the period of 1984–2013. We used 20 years moving averages of monthly mean temperature and precipitation and further classified them according to the growth stages of wheat. We estimated the weather shocks and combine effect of climatic variables by variation and interaction terms, respectively. Further, we translated the impacts of vulnerability of wheat grain on per-capita availability to depict the national food security level. Our empirical findings showed that impact of variation in temperature during growing stage is highly significant and contributes in lowering the wheat yield risk, while increase in precipitation during growing and flowering stages poses high risk to wheat crop. Interaction terms of climatic variables showed non-significant risk-decreasing effect during all the three growth stages of the crop. Further, we found that average per-capita wheat grain availability is 135 kg in Pakistan, significantly higher than self-sufficiency level but highly vulnerable. Our findings suggest that there is a need to develop robust adaptation strategies to combat the risk phenomenon and to sustain and improve wheat grain production for the masses in future. Specifically, developing climate resistant cultivars and educating farmers about balance use of inputs (e.g. fertilizer and irrigation) coupled with engendering awareness about climate change could lead to secure the wheat grain production in the country.