Impact of Rainfall and Temperature as Aspects of Climate Change on Maize Production in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe experiences variations in maize production such that production fell below 2.2 million tonnes between 2010 and 2021, making maize importation necessary despite implementing resilient agricultural practices for strengthening capacity for adaptation to climate change. This study sought to analyze impact of climate change on maize production in Zimbabwe from 1971 to 2021. The study focused on determination of long-run, short-run, and causality relationships between climate and non-climatic variables and maize production. The study used ADF unit root test to test stationarity of data. Autoregressive distributed lag model was employed to analyse long-run and short-run relationships, while Granger causality test was applied to analyse causal linkages. Results showed that in the long-run mean temperature (p = 0.001) and area (p = 0.017) were significant factors which affected maize production, while precipitation (p = 0.05) and area (p = 0.05) were significant factors which affected maize production in the short-run. Also, results from Granger causality test showed that there was a unidirectional causal linkage between precipitation and maize production (p-= 0.004), and a unidirectional causal linkage between maize production and area under maize production (p-= 0.027). Generally, findings highlight the need for Government to invest in irrigation system to reduce over reliance on rain-fed maize production.