International Journal of Agricultural Research and Review

Climate Change Impacts and Agriculture: Empirical evidence from Zarafshan River Basin, Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT

Accepted 8^th February, 2021.

Climate change is becoming one of most disruptive phenomena for the agriculture of Central Asian countries, particularly for the predominantly rural communities. Nonetheless, further consequences of climate changes are still remaining uncertain in the region. In this context, by aggregating both climatic and agricultural data we proposed to review the climate projections through agricultural transition and to analyze the impact of climate change (temperature and rainfall) on wheat yield for the first time in three regions of Uzbekistan, where irrigated agriculture has developed in Zarafshan River Basin.  Empirical findings revealed that, annual temperature has positive influence on wheat yield in short run. However, wheat farmers may suffer in distant future from increased temperature on their production. The annual precipitation amount has positive relation with production. In terms of seasonality changes, increase in temperature was found to have significant negative impact in all seasons. While, precipitation has significant positive influence in all seasons except summer in the regions of Zarafshan River Basin.

Keywords: Climate change, agricultural transition, wheat yield, Zarafshan River Basin