Impact of temperature and rainfall variability on coffee production in maraba

Abstract

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Rwandan economy, since it accounts for 43 per cent of GDP and sustains almost 90 per cent of the population. Since agricultural production in Rwanda depends almost exclusively on the quality of the rainy season and specific temperature ranges, it makes the country particularly vulnerable to climate variability and change. A change in temperature and rainfall has been considered to affect agriculture production in many parts of the country. In Rwanda, the coffee industry plays an important role in the country’s economic development. For many years coffee used to be Rwanda’s top export product and thus main source of foreign exchange income. In this study the programming language (python) was used to calculate to calculate coefficient of correlation ( ), coefficient of determination ( ) and the p-value (p) at the significance of 0.05 to determine relationship between climate variables rainfall and temperature and coffee yield from 2002-2017. The relationship between the amount of coffee in kg/ha produced and amount of rainfall in mm was statistically insignificant at 5% level. This indicates that coffee production was not much influenced by rainfall, but there must be other factors like shortage of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides which influence coffee production in the study area. The relationship between the amount of coffee in kg/ha produced and maximum temperature was statistically significant at 5% level, results show that which is less than 0.05, hence the relationship was significant. Negative correlation suggests that when there is an increase in maximum temperature, yield harvested reduces and vice versa. The relationship between the amount of coffee in kg/ha produced and mean temperature was statistically significant at 5% level, results show that which is less than 0.05, hence the relationship was significant. Negative correlation suggests that when there is an increase in mean temperature, yield harvested reduces and vice versa. These results may be associated with attack by pests and diseases associated with high temperature conditions. These results are in line with research according to [13] which shows that increase in temperature inhibits photosynthesis and results in changes in planting periods, reducing growth and resulting in smaller yields.