Climate and agriculture: empirical evidence for countries and agroecological zones of the Sahel

How heterogenous is the impact of climate change across space and the type of agricultural production? In this paper, we investigate the relationship between climate change and variability, measured by temperature and rainfall, and agricultural production at the country and agroecological zone levels of the Sahel. We consider a crop production index and five cereals (maize, millet, sorghum, wheat and rice). Based on an original climate database and an agricultural production function estimated for the period 1961-2016, we show that average rainfall and temperature during the growing season indeed have highly heterogeneous effects on agricultural production, depending on the specific needs and stress of each cereal and the agronomic and climatic conditions of each zone.