Working Paper 314 - Within-Season Response to Warmer Temperatures: Defensive Investments by Kenyan Farmers

Maulik Jagnani (), Christopher Barrett, Yanyan Liu () and Liangzhi You
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Maulik Jagnani: Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, http://cornell.edu

Working Paper Series from African Development Bank

Abstract: We present evidence that farmers adjust agricultural inputs in response to within season temperature variation, undertaking defensive investments to reduce the adverse agroecological impacts of warmer temperatures. Using panel data from Kenyan maize growing households, we find that higher temperatures early in the growing season increase the use of pesticides, while reducing fertilizer use. Warmer temperatures throughout the season increase weeding effort. These adjustments arise because greater heat increases the incidence of pests, crop diseases and weeds, compelling farmers to divert investment from productivity-enhancing technologies like fertilizer to adaptive, loss-reducing, defensive inputs like pesticides and weeding labor.

Keywords: Agriculture; temperature JEL classification: O13; Q15; Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adb:adbwps:2440

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