Trend of Wheat Production in Lesotho and Its Determinants: Five Decades and Beyond (Published)
Wheat being the third most important cereal crop in Lesotho, after Maize and Sorghum, has been decreasing in production, area planted and yield. This decline has not been determined using statistical analysis. The objectives of the study were to (1) determine trend in wheat production, area planted and yield, (2) estimate regression coefficients of factors affecting wheat and (3) establish correlation coefficient of these factors. Time series data from 1961 to 2013 on total production of wheat, area planted, yield, rainfall and temperature were captured from FAOSTAT (2013). GENSTAT software was perform statistical analysis. The results revealed a dramatic decline in production, area planted and yield of 77%, 82% and 33.16%, respectively. Regression analysis revealed significant difference (p>0.01) among the regrsessors and each regressor had elasticity coefficient influencing wheat production. Correlation analysis showed that yield was highly correlated (r =0.6678) with area and moderately correlated with temperature (r =0.363) and rainfall (r = 0.2011).
Keywords: Correlation, Lesotho, Production, Regression, Wheat Trend