Climate change, technology and governance: pathways to food security in Nepal

This study investigates the impacts of climate-related variables, carbon emissions, precipitation, and temperature, on agricultural productivity in Nepal from 1990 to 2021, with a focus on implications for national food security. It further assesses the mitigating roles of information and communication technology (ICT), governance quality, financial development, and technological innovation in enhancing agricultural resilience under climate stress. Using advanced econometric methods, including the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality analysis, we find evidence of long-run co-integration among climate and institutional variables. Trend analyses using the Mann-Kendall and Sen’s slope tests reveal significant changes in climate patterns over the study period. Empirical results show that a 1% increase in CO₂ emissions leads to a 0.45% decline in agricultural productivity, while a 1% increase in precipitation raises productivity by 0.47% annually. ICT access, effective governance, innovation, and financial sector development significantly enhance agricultural outcomes. Moreover, bidirectional causality between financial development and agricultural productivity underscores their interdependence. These findings underscore the critical need for climate-smart agricultural practices, strengthened institutional capacity, and inclusive policy interventions, such as expanding climate-resilient seed distribution networks, incentivizing water-efficient irrigation technologies, and integrating ICT-based climate advisory services into rural extension programs, to enhance the resilience of Nepal and other climate-vulnerable agrarian economies.