Abstract/Summary

This thesis presents three self-contained essays, each addressing a salient aspect of climate change impact and adaptation on Pakistan’s agricultural sector. The first essay estimates how rising temperatures and anomalous rainfall patterns affect agricultural output, particularly focusing on wheat yields over time. The second essay explores the input side, analysing how changes in land allocation serves as an adaptation strategy in response to past temperature shocks amid government support. The final essay explores how agricultural households respond to past temperature shocks through off-farm labour participation, showing income diversification as a key adaptation strategy in the face of climate change. Wheat yield response to climate change: A district-level analysis in Pakistan This study examines the impact of daytime and nighttime warming, along with excess rainfall, on various stages of wheat development—planting, growing, and harvesting—in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. We quantify excess heat and rainfall at each developmental stage by comparing current climate variables (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and rainfall) with their respective long-run averages at the district level. Using panel data methods, we analyse the effects of these climate conditions on wheat yields across districts in KP from 2000 to 2019. The findings indicate that wheat is highly sensitive to high temperatures in KP province. Excess heat affects wheat yields negatively across all the districts. The impact is particularly severe in hotter districts, adversely affecting both the growing and harvesting stages. While, excess rainfall during the planting stage benefits wheat yields, while rainfall at later stages has a negative impact, potentially delaying the ripening of wheat. Moreover, the results also show that districts adjust their input choices amid hot climate. Irrigation emerges as a crucial strategy for mitigating the negative effects of high temperatures across all districts. In contrast, fertiliser application does not appear to be an effective adaptation strategy during hot climate conditions. This study concludes that wheat is highly sensitive to high temperatures in the province, necessitating improved adaptive practices to safeguard yields. Adaptation to extreme temperature: Evidence from land allocation in agricultural sector of Pakistan This chapter investigates the impact of past temperature shocks on different land-use types—total agricultural land, other cropland, and wheat land—in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, over the period 1981 to 2019. Using a log-linear regression model, it estimates how land allocation responds to past temperature shocks and examines whether these effects vary across the climatic regions. The analysis is framed within the context of a government policy supporting wheat production. This policy refers to the government’s Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat, which aims to encourage wheat production by guaranteeing farmers a fixed price for their crop. The study compares two sub-periods: 1981–2006, characterised by relatively low government support for wheat production, and 2007–2019, when support was relatively higher. The findings show that during the low support period, land allocated to wheat declined in the aftermath of temperature shocks, resulting in a contraction of total cultivated land across the province. The effects, however, vary across climatic regions. During the low support period, southern districts employed resilience-building strategies by shifting to heat-resilient crops. This adaptive response resulted in an expansion of total cultivated land. While, other regions experienced reductions in both the share of land allocated to wheat and total agricultural land. Their limited capacity to transition to alternative crops constrained their responses, forcing them to focus on minimising potential losses from climatic risks. During the high support period (2007–2019), the findings suggests that government support has prevented a decline in the land allocated to wheat. The results show no evidence of a reduction in wheat land across the province, instead, an increase was observed, particularly in the southern and northern regions. In these regions, land allocation towards government-supported wheat increased in response to previous year’s temperature shocks, often at the expense of other crops. In particular, the northern region, which is poorer and more resource-constrained, shifted away from growing heat-resistant crops and instead devoted more land to wheat cultivation. While the government support provides a sense of security in the face of climatic risks, it may also inadvertently increase reliance on a vulnerable crop. Extreme temperature, labour supply, and subsistence farming: Evidence from Pakistan This chapter focuses on how off-farm labour response have changed among agricultural households over the the past two decades (2001-2018). Utilising survey data from about 21200 agricultural households across 107 districts and high-resolution gridded temperature and rainfall data over time, our analysis indicates changes in off-farm labour responses among agricultural households in the aftermath of temperature shocks. We find no significant impact of one-year lagged temperature shock on off-farm labour participation over the first decade (2001- 2011) and a positive association between a lagged-year temperature shock and off-farm labour supply in the second decade (last two survey years 2015 and 2018). We, empirically examine three potential mechanisms underlying observed responses in off-farm labour supply. We show that the increase reliance on off-farm labour is not driven by 1) worsening of temperature shocks over time, nor by 2) learning from repeated exposure, but can be linked to 3) improvements in local development conditions. This chapter highlights that local development conditions have significantly improved and derive off-farm responses among agricultural households, which partly explains the recent increase in the off-farm labour supply response.