Kansas State University has discovered research affecting Kansas farmers due to climate change.

Climate change is expected to bring more severe weather, like droughts and extreme heat, to Kansas in the coming decades, with significant negative impacts on farm productivity and profitability. Kansas State University research demonstrates the financial risks of extreme heat and the urgent need to help farmers build resilience to the increasing threat of climate change.

“What we did is used data going back to 1981 and we looked at what’s the impact of extreme heat on farm income. We didn’t just stop at that though so I think it’s important to quantify the impact, but we also looked at factors that mitigate the impact both in terms of policies and some things farmers do,” said Jennifer Ifft, associate professor department of agricultural economics at K-State.

The study found over the last four decades, for every 1⁰C of warming gross farm income decreased by 7%, and net farm income decreased by 66%. For an average farm in this study, this meant that farmers lost about $43,000 from an average net farm income of about $66,000.

“If you’re growing corn, wheat, beans, milo most farmers are purchasing some type of crop insurance. What our data shows is that it covers about half of the losses and that’s exactly how it’s designed, it’s not designed to take away all the risk but it bloods the severe financial impact and if you talk to farm organizations, commodity organizations in our state you’ll see that is one of their top priorities,” said Ifft.

Farmers need access to financial and risk management solutions that help them adapt to a changing climate. Robust risk management practices and programs play a crucial role in reducing the impacts of extreme heat on net farm income. Crop insurance helped farmers recover 51% of net income losses, while crop inventory adjustments helped recover 16% of the losses. Achieving robust agricultural production in the face of climate change will require financial and technical assistance from the public and private sectors.

“Drought is nothing new to Kansas producers are used to dealing and the policies we have, especially crop insurance are a big part of that so if we got to a case where the farm bill was drastically changed where crop insurance is drastically reduced that would completely change how agricultural lending works how farmers manage their business and there would be a pretty big negative financial impact,” said Ifft.

The number of days with extreme heat in Kansas that causes crop loss is projected to increase by 58% by 2030.

Source - https://www.wibw.com