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Abstract
Climate variability, the short-term fluctuations in average weather
conditions and agriculture affect each other. Climate variability affects
the agro ecological and growing conditions of crops and livestock,
and is believed to be the greatest impediment to the realisation of the
first Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and food
insecurity in arid and semi-arid regions of developing countries.
Conversely, agriculture is a major contributor to climate variability
and change by emitting greenhouse gases and reducing the agro
ecology’s potential for carbon sequestration. What however, is the
empirical evidence of this inter-dependence of climate variability
and agriculture in Sub-Sahara Africa? In this paper, we provide some
insight into the long run relationship between inter-annual variations
in temperature and rainfall versus annual yields of the most important
staple food crops in Northern Ghana. Applying pooled panel data of
rainfall, temperature and yields of selected crops from 1976 to 2010 to
co-integration and Granger causality models, there is cogent evidence
of co-integration between seasonal, total rainfall and crop yields; and
causality from rainfall to crop yields in the Sudano-Guinea Savannah
and Guinea Savannah zones of Northern Ghana. This suggests that
inter-annual yields of the crops have been influenced by the total
mounts of planting season rainfall. Temperature variability over the
study period is however stationary, and is expected to have minimal
effect if any on crop yields. Overall, the results confirm the fitness of
our model of long-term relationships between climate and crop yield
variables, and have implications for production decisions on croplivestock
integration by smallholder farming systems.