CLIMATE CHANGE AND AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT IN ECOWAS COUNTRIES

This study examined the climate change and agricultural output in ECOWAS countries from a span of 39 years (1985–2023). The primary aim of this study is to examine the impact of climatic changes and agricultural output in ECOWAS member countries. The figures were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the figures Bulletin for the years as well as World Bank database1990 to 2022. The study used panel dynamic linear Auto regressive distributed lagged (PDARDL) regression to examine five explanatory variables: Rainfall measured as average precipitation in depth (mm per year),Carbon dioxide emission from industrial combustion, Extreme temperature measured as drought, flood and temperature (% of population) in Depth (mm per year), Agricultural policy, Agricultural Expenditure. The dependent variable under consideration was Agricultural, forestry, fishing value added (annual % growth) (the dependent variable). The findings revealed that rainfall (RAIN) had direct long-run impact on agricultural yield (AGRO) in both low income and low middle income countries in the ECOWAS region, The result also showed that average agricultural output was higher in low income ECOWAS nations than in low middle income ECOWAS countries. It was concluded that while increase in rainfall has direct impact on agricultural yield, the extreme weather condition and carbon emissions adversely affects agricultural yield. It is recommended that federal and state government through the help of environmental control authorities should help to educate citizens, producers about various human activities such as deforestation and indiscriminate bush burning that could be contributing to fast rising climatic changes and its attendant consequences in agricultural yield within the region.