Distributional impacts of climate change on agricultural total factor productivity in India

This paper assesses the distribution of climate change impacts on agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP) across districts in India. Combining the district-level TFP, estimated using multiple rounds of nationally representative agricultural surveys, with climate and other controls, the relationship between production efficiency and climate is estimated for two time points: 2002–2003 and 2012–2013. The estimated climate response function suggests that for every 1 °C rise in temperature, agricultural productivity reduces by ∼4.5%. Using estimated climate sensitivity and regionally downscaled climate projections, the study further assesses the impacts on agricultural TFP across districts over the mid-century. By 2050, TFP in agriculture is projected to decline for all the states considered in the study. The latter-period (2012–2013) climate response function projects more adverse impacts compared to the early-period (2002–2003) response function. The results also show increase in the magnitude of impacts over time, indicating that Indian agriculture has become more climate sensitive.