The specific objective of this study is to determine the potential impact of rainfall, and temperature anomalies on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth of agriculture in SACU member nations, namely, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. The analysis was conducted in two phases using time series data between 1981 and 2018. In phase one, agricultural TFP growth in the region was estimated and decomposed with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Mamquist productivity measure. In the second phase, a panel regression model was used to investigate the relationship between the estimated TFP growth and the climate variables. The results show that all the countries within SACU made technological progress in their agricultural productivity growth apart from Eswatini. The effect of climate change on the regional agricultural productivity growth is negative and significant and there seems to be an urgent need for all the stakeholders in SACU agricultural sector to take proactive steps on climate change adaptation options.

Index Terms- Agriculture, Climate Change, SACU, Total Factor Productivity