The Impacts of El Nino Southern Oscillation Events on Cereal Production in Asia

Agriculture activities in Asia and the Pacific are based on the Asian monsoon climate. Such climate conditions are periodic on an annual basis, resulting in a stable crop production movement with reference to the monsoon season in the region. The introduction of El Nino-related phenomenon added an abnormality that disturbed the fundamental modes of crop cultivation seriously impeded the production of food and other food crops in the affected areas. The abnormities induced by El Nino, included a shift of the rainy season, less rain, prolongation of the dry season and high temperatures, have caused serious damage to wide areas of the agricultural sectors. This paper is to measure the sensitivity of food crop production to the fluctuations in climate changes.

In this thesis, regression model was used to analyze the relationship between the El Nino phenomenon and its effect on production of rice, maize, soybeans, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, and cassava. The estimation period would be 1961-2010. The targeted regions are East Asia (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan), South East Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines) and South Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji).
The production loss in El Nino years as compared to non-El Nino years was characterized by: 1) absolute magnitude (El Nino years: 6.48 per cent versus non-El Nino years: 4 per cent); 2) simultaneous decline in both yield and area harvested (production loss in non-El Nino years was mainly caused by yield decline); and 3) single year phenomenon with recovery of production in the following year.

Among the six major food crops, maize was the most sensitive to ENSO for both the area harvested and yield. Sweet potato was the next significantly ENSO sensitive crop with moderate to strong ENSO sensitivity in all regions examined. Rice is the least ENSO sensitive amongst the major crops in all regions examined. Cassava and groundnuts were not significantly affected by ENSO, although their production variability was larger than that of rice. Thus, the production stability of maize and soybean may be enhanced, by incorporating crop diversification of root crop in the region concerned.
Based on the outcome of the analysis, strategic policies to overcome the damage could be through technological, managerial and administrative tactics. Farmers to reduce possible production decrease during drought should apply delaying the planting date. Alternatively, early harvesting is the second strategy.