Climate Change and Food Security in Nigeria: Implications for Staple Crop Production

Abstract

This study contributes to the literature on environmental economics and sustainability by examining the implications of climate change on staple food production. The specific objectives centre on investigating how carbon dioxide emissions, rainfall, temperature and methane emissions affect crop production in Nigeria between 1990 and 2023. Time series data were obtained from the CBN Statistical Bulletin, World Bank and FAO statistics. Descriptive statistics and econometric techniques of unit root, cointegration and least squares estimation were applied for the data analysis. The ADF unit root test results showed that the variables are mixed integrated with carbon dioxide emissions being integrated of order zero while the other variables are integrated of order one. The bounds cointegration test results showed that food production has a long-run relationship with carbon dioxide emissions, rainfall, temperature and methane emissions. The findings showed that carbon dioxide emission positively and significantly affects food production in the long and short run. This finding indicates that carbon dioxide emission does not adversely affect the production of food crops. Similarly, the results showed that average rainfall affected food production positively in the long and short run. This finding is significant at the 5% level, indicating that variability in rainfall is not detrimental to food production during the study period. The effect of average temperature on food production is negative in the long run. Although this finding is not significant at the 5% level, it suggests that variability in the climatic conditions poses a threat to food production in Nigeria. The results also showed that methane emissions contributed positively to food production. This highlights that methane emissions increase with the increase in food production. Given the findings, the study recommends among others that policymakers should ensure strict adherence to environmental laws and promote adaptation strategies to minimize the extent temperature variability undermines the growth of food production in Nigeria.