Vol. 77 No. 2 (2022)
Research Articles

Historical crop yields and climate variability: analysis of Italian cereal data

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  • Fabio Gaetano Santeramo,
  • Irene Maccarone
Fabio Gaetano Santeramo
Università di Foggia
Irene Maccarone
University of Foggia
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-13596

Published 2022-08-04

Keywords

  • climate change,
  • cereals,
  • detrendisation

How to Cite

Santeramo, F. G., & Maccarone, I. (2022). Historical crop yields and climate variability: analysis of Italian cereal data. Italian Review of Agricultural Economics, 77(2), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-13596
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Abstract

Climate change is impacting on the agricultural sector in several ways, and the effects on yields are generally among the most observable ones. Open fields crops, such as cereals, are very vulnerable to climate change. We study the historical data on yields of main cereals, namely barley, maize, oats, rice, rye, wheat, to conclude on the long run impacts of temperature and precipitation, over the period 1920-2015. Yields are found to be inversely correlated with temperatures and positively with precipitation, in both cases the relationships are non-linear, as expected.

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