Modeling Agricultural Production Risk and the Adaptation to Climate Change

An approach that integrates biophysical simulations in an economic model is used to analyze the impact of climate change on Swiss corn and winter wheat production. Adaptation options such as changes in sowing dates, changes in production intensity, and the adoption of irrigation farming are considered in the model. By carrying out sensitivity analysis with different scenarios, we find farmers adaptation actions and crop yeilds to be very sensitive to both climate change and output prices. Moreover, our model results show that simple adaptation measures are sufficient to generate higher and less variable crop yields in the future.