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Climate change has become an issue of concern for sustainable agriculture production. East African nations are heavily reliant on the agriculture sector, which accounts for a substantial amount of their gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. Due to climatic fluctuations, the output of the sector became very unpredictable. Hence, this study investigates the effects of climate change on cereal crop production in nine East African nations between 1990 and 2018. The study implemented pooled mean group (PMG) approach to examine the long-run and short-run dynamic impacts of the varying climatic circumstances on the output of cereal crops. The results reveal that rainfall and carbon emissions have favourable and significant long-run effects on cereal crop output, even though their short-run impacts are negligible. Additionally, cultivated land area and rural population have a constructive role in enhancing agricultural output both in the long-run and short-run. However, average temperatures have negative repercussions on cereal crop production in the long-run and short-run, even though the magnitude of sensitivity is greater in the short-run. Dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) validated the robustness of the long-run findings of the PMG technique. Besides, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality outcomes indicate that cereal crop output has a bidirectional causality with temperature, carbon emissions, and cropped area. The study further demonstrated unidirectional causation from rural population to cereal crop yield. The study recommends that East African policymakers improve the quality of farm inputs, the adoption of climate-resilient farming practices, the development of water retention facilities and the establishment of crop diversification initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]