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A Representative Farm Approach to Analyzing Farmer Adaptation to Climate Change

Peter Zimmel, George Knapek, and Marc Raulston

Summary

Farmer adaptation to climate change is a hot topic throughout multiple agricultural disciplines. Farmers are essentially in a near-constant state of adaptation to ever-changing conditions, whether they be market or environmentally driven. Advanced climate modeling techniques were used to assess the inter-annual variability of yields in the Midwestern U.S. in a baseline scenario and to quantify the impact of one particular adaptation, an earlier planting date, on expected changes in mean yields and yield variability. Subsequently, FAPRI estimated price impacts of these changes in yields and yield variability on the January 2015 FAPRI Stochastic Baseline. The natural progression is to analyze the financial impacts of adaptation on producers at the farm level. Farmers were interviewed initially and asked about their views on climate change, what changes they have already made to their operations due to changes in weather, and what climate variables they would utilize in making decisions going forward. This study includes climate scientist findings, sector level data, farm level data, and a whole farm simulation model to determine the economic impacts on farmer adaptation to climate change in major production regions of the Midwestern U.S. The presentation will highlight the modeling data and the interaction with the farmers and their views on climate change.

Details

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