Climate Change, Drought, and Agricultural Production in Brazil

Francisco Cavalcanti, Steven M. Helfand and Ajax Moreira

No 344267, IAAE 2024 Conference, August 2-7, 2024, New Delhi, India from International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE)

Abstract: Climate change is likely to impact the occurrence of natural disasters such as drought. This paper calculates a standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and uses it to analyze the frequency, duration and severity of drought in Brazil (1901-2020). Second, the study uses annual panel data to estimate the causal effects of drought on agricultural production (1974- 2019), and calculates the distribution of impacts across municipalities. Third, the paper compares annual panel and long difference estimates to shed light on adaptation/intensification over a longer period. Finally, by combining the panel estimates with seven CMIP6 global climate models, the study provides a range of projections for drought impacts (2025-2075). Results indicate that drought severity increased substantially in the second half of the 20th century and again in the 2010s. Estimates show that ten percent of the time droughts reduced municipal production by about 25% or more, with considerable spatial heterogeneity. Long difference estimates indicate intensification in response to more extreme droughts, and (statistically insignificant) adaptation at the median. A substantial risk to agricultural production is identified in the 21st century, especially under more pessimistic global warming scenarios, with annual losses rising to over 35% by 2075. Policy implications are discussed.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy; International Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/344267/files/20519.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:cfcp15:344267

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.344267

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IAAE 2024 Conference, August 2-7, 2024, New Delhi, India from International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().