Impact of climate change on milk production in Nigeria

Abstract

This study explores the impacts of climate change on milk production in Nigeria. Climate variables such as temperature, rainfall, sunshine, relative humidity and wind speed were considered as covariates in the analysis. Time-series data spanning a period of forty years obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria and FAOSTAT database was used. The autoregressive distributed lag model was used to analyze both the short run and long run impacts of climate change on milk production. As expected, not all the variables were stationary at levels, but they were all significant at the difference suggesting the presence of cointegration. The result showed that the Bound’s test F-ratio was statistically significant implies the existence of long run and short run relationships among the variables studied. Present findings revealed that temperature, rainfall and relative humidity had a negative impact on milk production, while sunlight recorded a positive impact on milk production both in the short run and long run estimates. The study concludes that milk production in Nigeria dropped as a result of climate change particularly rising temperature and prolonged rainfall. Agricultural climate smart practices were recommended to mitigate impact of climate change on milk production.