Agriculture

1
Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change

• John Reilly
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Appearance before the
• Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and
  Forestry
• 25 March 2003, Ottawa, Canada

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Climate, Weather, Markets

• Climate change beneficial or detrimental
• Time Scalecrop season, decade, century
• Persistent trend, variability
• Beyond the farm gate resources, pollution,
  transportation, communities
• Observed trends, predicted changes.

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US Regional Production Changes, Canadian Center
Climate
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Regional Production Changes, Hadley Center
Climate
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Changes in Resource Use, Canadian and Hadley
Center Climates
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Adaptation Cautions

• A few years may mislead with regard to the long
  term trend predictability at relevant spatial
  scales is a distant goal or impossibility.
• Is an adaptive investment viable if trend
  persists? irrigation may work for a while but
  not long if the water source disappears.
• Economic assistance may reduce incentive to make
  the difficult but necessary changes.

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Adaptation

• Economics and Management
• Price (profit, loss) as signals.
• Risk management market instruments.
• Information
• Monitoring/analysis of weather trends
• Improved medium-run forecasting
• Education re. climate change potential
  responses.
• Specific Technological Responses
• Water management
• Crop varieties, planting dates
• Pest management