An Empirical Analysis of Climate Variability, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin, North East Nigeria

The shrinkage of Lake Chad and associated changes in regional hydroclimate have produced profound agricultural and food security consequences for communities in Nigeria's North East zone, yet the empirical relationships between climate variability parameters and productivity outcomes remain incompletely specified at the sub-basin level. This study empirically analyses the relationships between climate variability indicators, crop yield performance, and food insecurity outcomes across twelve Local Government Areas within Nigeria's Lake Chad basin extent over the period 2010 to 2023. Panel data combining spatially downscaled rainfall and temperature anomaly data, crop yield records from the Borno and Yobe state agricultural development programmes, and food security indicator data from the Cadre Harmonise are analysed using fixed effects panel regression. Mediation analysis assesses the pathways through which climate variability influences food insecurity, distinguishing direct crop yield effects from indirect pathways mediated by water availability, grazing productivity, and conflict incidence. Results confirm that rainfall deficits and elevated temperature during the grain-filling stage are the dominant climate predictors of yield variability for sorghum and millet, the primary staple crops. The mediation model indicates that 38 percent of the total climate effect on food insecurity operates through conflict pathways, highlighting the indirect climate-security-food nexus. The study fills an empirical gap in the Nigerian climate-food security literature by quantifying pathway-specific effects and identifying threshold rainfall levels below which food insecurity escalates non-linearly. Policy recommendations address climate-smart variety development, conflict early warning integration into food security systems, and targeted safety net programming calibrated to climate anomaly severity. Keywords: climate variability, food insecurity, Lake Chad, panel data analysis, crop yield.