Track 2-07: Climate Change Impacts on Grassland Production, Composition, Distribution and Adaptation
Description
We develop a bio-economic model that combines the process based grassland simulation model PROGRASS with an economic decision model, which accounts for income risks and yield quality, to derive optimal nitrogen application rates in a grass-clover system in Switzerland. The model is applied to current as well as to future climate conditions. Though nitrogen increases yields, it also leads to a higher variance and more negative skewness of yields, i.e. is risk increasing. Accounting for farmers’ risk aversion thus reduces optimal nitrogen use. We find climate change, ceteris paribus, to lead to higher grassland yields but also to increase the variability of yields substantially. Optimal adaptation responses to climate change were found to be sensitive to the consideration of yield quality and the level of farmer’s risk aversion.
Citation
Finger, Robert; Calanca, Pierluigi; and Briner, Simon, "Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Managed Grassland Production Using a Bio-Economic Modelling Approach" (2020). IGC Proceedings (1997-2023). 1.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/22/2-7/1
Included in
Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Managed Grassland Production Using a Bio-Economic Modelling Approach
We develop a bio-economic model that combines the process based grassland simulation model PROGRASS with an economic decision model, which accounts for income risks and yield quality, to derive optimal nitrogen application rates in a grass-clover system in Switzerland. The model is applied to current as well as to future climate conditions. Though nitrogen increases yields, it also leads to a higher variance and more negative skewness of yields, i.e. is risk increasing. Accounting for farmers’ risk aversion thus reduces optimal nitrogen use. We find climate change, ceteris paribus, to lead to higher grassland yields but also to increase the variability of yields substantially. Optimal adaptation responses to climate change were found to be sensitive to the consideration of yield quality and the level of farmer’s risk aversion.
