Res. on Crops 18 (4) : 575-582 (2017) With nine figures Printed in India DOI : 10.5958/2348-7542.2017.00098.5 Impact of climate change on cereal production in the highlands of eastern Algeria MEISAM ZARGAR 1, *, NAZIH REBOUH 1,2 , ELENA PAKINA 1 , ANVAR GADZHIKURBANOV, MARINA LYASHKO AND BASHIR ORTSKHANOV 1 1 Department of AgroBiotechnology Institute of Agriculture, RUDN University, Moscow, Russia *(e-mail : zargar_m@pfur.ru) (Received : August 28, 2017/Accepted : October 06, 2017) ABSTRACT The results obtained indicate a favorable climate change for cereal yields. This change in climate was expressed by increase in maximum temperature of 1.45°C, minimum temperature of 1.26°C and 2.5 mm increase in precipitation. It was also observed that change in climate increased the total production of wheat to 16544.4 tonnes during the studied periods of 1990 to 2004 and 2004 to 2014 due to improved productivity of wheat to 6.33 tonnes/ha. It was also observed that different durum wheat producing regions in eastern Algeria did not differ significantly in respect to production. On the basis of this study, it can be concluded that climate change had positive effect on durum wheat production in the Bordj Bou Arréridj province of Algeria. Key words : Climate change, durum, evolution, precipitation, temperature, wheat 2 Department of Life Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of El-Bashir el Ibrahimi, Galbois, Algeria. INTRODUCTION Cereals are the major human food resource and also provide a privileged resource for animal feed and multiple industrial applications (Bonjean and Picard, 1990; Zargar et al., 2011). About 95% of total food requirement for world’s population is supplied by the main cereal crops (Slama et al., 2005; Asgari et al., 2017). Food consumption in the Maghreb countries including Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, etc. has increased than that the estimated nutritional needs of individuals, leaving large sections of the population in difficulty (Allaya, 1993; Mafakheri et al., 2012). Due to increased food demand at the beginning of the twentieth century, Algeria imported 3.5 million tonnes of durum wheat. The national yield of durum wheat in Algeria is the lowest as compared to other Mediterranean countries (Belaid, 2000). As a result, Algeria buys more than 5% of total world cereal production annually. This situation is likely to persist for several years due to low yields and rising consumption of cereals, which leads to a strong demographic change (Shakouri et al., 2012; Zargar and Pakina, 2014). The majority of the cereals producing area in Algeria is in arid and semi-arid zones (El- Mourid et al., 1996). Therefore, insufficient wheat production in Algeria is always linked to water stress (Barros et al., 2008) as well as low winter and spring temperatures (Annicchiarico et al., 2005). In addition, during last three decades, the climate change has also been noticed. This change in climate in Algeria context is explained by the increase in average temperature and stronger rain flow variability. Hence, the present study was conducted with the objectives to identify and locate the potential cereal growing regions in Algeria and, to study how these regions react to climate change during 1997 to 2007 and 2007 to 2014 in eastern Algeria. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was conducted to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of grain production in Wilaya area of Bordj Bou Arréridj province, which is situated in central plains of eastern Algeria, in relation to climate change during 1990 to 2004 and 2004 to 2014 periods. For this study, 21 potential cereal producing regions sown with durum wheat in eastern