Climate change and cotton production: an empirical investigation of Pakistan

This study investigates the relationship between climate change, the area under cultivation, fertilizer consumption, and cotton production in Pakistan from 1980 to 2018. The existence and nature of the short-term and long-term relationships are explored by using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model bounds testing approach. The estimated result of the ARDL bounds testing approach has shown the presence of cointegration between dependent and explanatory variables. The long-term estimates have revealed that the increasing average temperature has a positive insignificant effect, which implies that rising temperature is not increasing cotton yield in Pakistan. The findings of the area under cultivation and fertilizer consumption have revealed significant positive effects in both the long run and short run. This study urges Pakistan to reduce the pace of climate changes and increase water conservation by planting forests and constructing dams across major rivers along with the adoption of environmentally friendly production techniques and inputs.