Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-w9n4q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T13:26:12.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crop productivity and adaptation to climate change in Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2018

Ashley Gorst ,
Ali Dehlavi  and
Ben Groom
Ashley Gorst*
Affiliation:
Vivid Economics, London, UK
Ali Dehlavi
Affiliation:
Data Strategy and Analytics Department HBL Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan
Ben Groom
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: ashley.gorst@vivideconomics.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The effectiveness of adaptation strategies is crucial for reducing the costs of climate change. Using plot-level data from a specifically designed survey conducted in Pakistan, we investigate the productive benefits for farmers who adapt to climate change. The impact of implementing on-farm adaptation strategies is estimated separately for two staple crops: wheat and rice. We employ propensity score matching and endogenous switching regressions to account for the possibility that farmers self-select into adaptation. Estimated productivity gains are positive and significant for rice farmers who adapted, but negligible for wheat. Counterfactual gains for non-adapters were significantly positive, which is potentially a sign of transactions costs to adaptation. Other factors associated with adaptation were formal credit and extension, underscoring the importance of addressing institutional and informational constraints that inhibit farmers from improving their farming practices. The findings provide evidence for the Pakistani Planning and Development Department's ongoing assessment of climate-related agricultural losses.

Keywords

climate changeadaptationproductivityPakistanwheatrice
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 6 , December 2018 , pp. 679 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abdulai, A and Huffman, W (2014) The adoption and impact of soil and water conservation technology: an endogenous switching regression application. Land Economics 90(1), 26–43.Google Scholar
Aleem, I (1990) Imperfect information, screening, and the cost of informal lending: a study of a rural credit market in Pakistan. World Bank Economic Review 4(3), 329–349.Google Scholar
Ali, A, Abdulai, A and Goetz, R (2012) Impacts of tenancy arrangements on investment and efficiency: evidence from Pakistan. Agricultural Economics 43, 85–97.Google Scholar
Auffhammer, M and Schlenker, W (2014) Empirical studies on agricultural impacts and adaptation. Energy Economics 46, 555–561.Google Scholar
Baig, M, Shahid, S and Straquadine, G (2013) Making rainfed agriculture sustainable through environmental friendly technologies in Pakistan: a review. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 1(2), 36–52.Google Scholar
Birkhauser, D, Evenson, R and Feder, G (1991) The economic impact of agricultural extension: a review. Economic Development and Cultural Change 39(3), 607–650.Google Scholar
Burke, M and Lobell, D (2010) Food security and adaptation to climate change: what do we know? InLobell, D and Burke, M (eds). Climate Change and Food Security. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer, pp. 133–153.Google Scholar
Caliendo, M and Kopeinig, S (2008) Some practical guidance for the implementation of propensity score matching. Journal of Economic Surveys 22, 31–72.Google Scholar
Challinor, A, Watson, J, Lobell, D, Howden, S, Smith, D and Chhetri, N (2014) A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation. Nature Climate Change 4, 287–291.Google Scholar
Chandler, S and Faruqee, R (2003) The impact of farm credit in Pakistan. Agricultural Economics 28, 197–213.Google Scholar
Chaudhry, Q, Mahmood, A, Rasul, G and Afzaal, M (2009) Climate change indicators of Pakistan (Technical Report No. PMD-22/2009). Pakistan Meteorological Department.Google Scholar
Dehejia, R and Wahba, S (2002) Propensity score-matching methods for nonexperimental causal studies. The Review of Economics and Statistics 84(1), 151–161.Google Scholar
Deressa, TT, Hassan, RM, Ringler, C, Alemu, T and Yesuf, M (2009) Determinants of farmers’ choice of adaptation methods to climate change in the Nile basin of Ethiopia. Global Environmental Change 19(2), 248–255.Google Scholar
Deschenes, O and Greenstone, M (2007) The economic impacts of climate change: evidence from agricultural output and random fluctuations in weather. American Economic Review 97(1), 354–385.Google Scholar
Di Falco, S (2014) Adaptation to climate change in Sub-Saharan agriculture: assessing the evidence and rethinking the drivers. European Review of Agricultural Economics 41(3), 405–430.Google Scholar
Di Falco, S and Veronesi, M (2013) How african agriculture can adapt to climate change? A counterfactual analysis from Ethiopia. Land Economics 89(4), 743–766.Google Scholar
Di Falco, S, Veronesi, M and Yesuf, M (2011) Does adaptation to climate change provide food security? A micro perspective from Ethiopia. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 93(3), 829–846.Google Scholar
Fankhauser, S, Smith, J and Tol, R (1999) Weathering climate change: some simple rules to guide adaptation decisions. Ecological Economics 30(1), 67–78.Google Scholar
FAO (2013) Pakistan: review of the wheat sector and grain storage issues (Technical report). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan. Agricultural Census (2010) Government of Pakistan Statistics Division Agricultural Census Organisation, 2010.Google Scholar
Haq, A, Aslam, A, Chaudhry, AA, Naseer, A, Muhammad, K, Mushtaq, K, Farooqi, MS (2013) Who is the ‘Arthi’: understanding the commission agent's role in the agriculture supply chain. International Growth Centre (IGC) Working Paper.Google Scholar
Heckman, J (1979) Sample selection as a specification error. Econometrica 47(1), 153–161.Google Scholar
Heckman, J, Tobias, JL and Vytlacil., E (2003) Simple estimators for treatment parameters in a latent-variable framework. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85(3), 748–755.Google Scholar
Hijioka, Y, Lin, E, Pereira, JJ, Corlett, RT, Cui, X, Insarov, GE, Lasco, RD, Lindgren, E and Surjan, A (2014) Asia. In Barros, VR, Field, CB, Dokken, DJ, Mastrandrea, MD, Mach, KJ, Bilir, TE, Chatterjee, M, Ebi, KL, Estrada, YO, Genova, RC, Girma, B, Kissel, ES, Levy, AN, MacCracken, S, Mastrandrea, PR and White, LL (eds). Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1327–1370.Google Scholar
Huber, M and Mellance, G (2014) Testing exclusion restrictions and additive separability in sample selection models. Empirical Economics 47(1), 75–92.Google Scholar
Hussain, SS, Byerlee, D and Heisey, PW (1994) Impacts of the training and visit extension system on farmers’ knowledge and adoption of technology: evidence from Pakistan. Agricultural Economics 10, 39–47.Google Scholar
Islam, S, Rehman, N and Sheikh, MM (2009) Future change in the frequency of warm and cold spells over Pakistan simulated by the PRECIS regional climate model. Climatic Change 94, 35–45.Google Scholar
Jacoby, HG and Mansuri, G (2008) Land tenancy and non-contractible investment in rural Pakistan. Review of Economic Studies 78, 763–788.Google Scholar
Kousar, R and Abdulai, A (2016) Off-farm work, land tenancy contracts and investment in soil conservation measures in rural Pakistan. The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 60(2), 307–325.Google Scholar
Kurukulasuriya, P and Mendelsohn, R (2008) Crop switching as a strategy for adapting to climate change. African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2, 105–126.Google Scholar
Lokshin, M and Sajaia, Z (2004) Maximum likelihood estimation of endogenous switching regression models. The Stata Journal 4(3), 282–289.Google Scholar
Maddison, D (2007) The perception of and adaptation to climate change in Africa. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4308.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R (2000) Efficient adaptation to climate change. Climatic Change 45, 583–600.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R, Nordhaus, W and Shaw, D (1994) The impact of global warming on agriculture: a Ricardian analysis. American Economic Review 84(4), 753–771.Google Scholar
Rosenbaum, P and Rubin, D (1983) The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika 70, 41–55.Google Scholar
Rosenbaum, PR (2002) Observational Studies. New York Springer.Google Scholar
Rubin, D (2001) Using propensity scores to help design observational studies: application to the tobacco litigation. Health Services & Outcomes Research Methodology 2, 169–188.Google Scholar
Samee, D, Nosheen, F, Khan, HN, Khowaji, IA, Jamali, K, Akhtar, S, Batool, Z and Khanum, Z (2015) Women in agriculture in Pakistan (Technical report). Islamabad: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).Google Scholar
Semenov, M, Stratonovitch, P, Alghabari, F and Gooding, M (2014) Adapting wheat in Europe for climate change. Journal of Cereal Science 59, 245–256.Google Scholar
Shiferaw, B, Kassie, M, Jaleta, M and Yirga, C (2014) Adoption of improved wheat varieties and impacts on household food security in Ethiopia. Food Policy 44, 272–284.Google Scholar
Siddiqui, R, Samad, G, Nasir, M and Jalil, H (2012) The impact of climate change on major agricultural crops: evidence from Punjab, Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 51, 261–274.Google Scholar
Singh, D, Tsiang, M, Rajaratnam, B and Diffenbaugh, N (2014) Observed changes in extreme wet and dry spells during the south Asian summer monsoon season. Nature Climate Change 4, 456–461.Google Scholar
Soora, N, Aggarwal, P, Saxena, R, Rani, S, Jain, S and Chauhan, N (2013) An assessment of regional vulnerability of rice to climate change in India. Climatic Change 118, 683–699.Google Scholar
Sultana, H, Ali, N, Mohsin Iqbal, M and Khan, AM (2009) Vulnerability and adaptability of wheat production in different climatic zones of Pakistan under climate change scenarios. Climatic Change 94, 123–142.Google Scholar
Turner, A and Annamalai, H (2012) Climate change and the south asian summer monsoon. Nature Climate Change 2, 587–595.Google Scholar
Udry, C (1996) Gender, agricultural production, and the theory of the household. Journal of Political Economy 104(5), 1010–1046.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Gorst et al. supplementary material

Gorst et al. supplementary material 1

Download Gorst et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 2.8 MB