The impact of climate change on agricultural production: a comparative analysis of three Global South regions

This study presents a comparative analysis of the impact of climate change on agricultural production across three regions in the Global South to verify the extent to which temperature and precipitation undermine the most vulnerable areas. Using a Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) approach within a Cobb-Douglas Climate production function, we analyze 30 countries in South Asia, Southern Africa, and South America, from 1980 to 2021. Our results indicate that temperature increase is associated with a significant negative impact on agricultural production per capita across all regions, as observed in both linear and non-linear models. Precipitation is found to have varying effects. In South Asia, an inverted-U relationship is observed, where moderate rainfall tends to enhance agricultural yields, whereas excessive rainfall is detrimental. South America also experiences a negative impact of increased precipitation, whereas in Southern Africa, the precipitation is positively related to agricultural production. A key finding is that climate change impacts are the most severe in South Asia, where the adverse effect of rising temperature is one and a half times greater than in Southern Africa and over three times greater than in South America. We also show that regions specializing in particular crops experience varying impacts of climate change, with South Asia being the most affected. Finally, low-income economies are found to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming. The study concludes with a discussion on the policies adopted by international institutions to reduce the impacts of climate change, along with suggestions for region-specific actions to improve agriculture’s resilience in the most affected regions.