Measuring the effects of extreme weather events on yields

Extreme weather events are expected to increase worldwide, therefore, anticipating and calculating their effects on crop yields is important for topics ranging from food security to the economic viability of biomass products. Given the local nature of weather, particularly precipitation, effects are best measured at a local level. This paper analyzes weather events at the level of the farm for a specific crop, winter wheat. Once it has been established that extreme events are expected to continue occurring at historically high levels for farming locations throughout the Netherlands, the effects of those events on wheat yields are estimated while controlling for the other major input factors affecting yields. Econometric techniques are applied to an unbalanced panel data set of 334 farms for a period of up to 12 years. Analyzes show that the number of days with extreme high temperatures in Dutch wheat growing regions has significantly increased since the early 1900s, while the number of extreme low temperature events has fallen over that same period. The effects of weather events on wheat yields were found to be time specific in that the week in which an event occurred determined its effect on yields. High temperature events and precipitation events were found to significantly decrease yields.