Campus Units
Agronomy, Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Aerospace Engineering, Ames Laboratory
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2015
Journal or Book Title
Climate Risk Management
Volume
7
First Page
20
Last Page
30
DOI
10.1016/j.crm.2015.01.004
Abstract
The usefulness of climate information for agricultural risk management hinges on its availability and relevance to the producer when climate-sensitive decisions are being made. Climate information providers are challenged with the task of balancing forecast availability and lead time with acceptable forecast skill, which requires an improved understanding of the timing of agricultural decision making. Achieving a useful balance may also require an expansion of inquiry to include use of non-forecast climate information (i.e. historical climate information) in agricultural decision making. Decision calendars have proven valuable for identifying opportunities for using different types of climate information. The extent to which decision-making time periods are localized versus generalized across major commodity-producing regions is yet unknown, though, which has limited their use in climate product development. Based on a 2012 survey of more than 4770 agricultural producers across the U.S. Corn Belt region, we found variation in the timing of decision-making points in the crop year based on geographic variation as well as crop management differences. Many key decisions in the cropping year take place during the preceding fall and winter, months before planting, raising questions about types of climate information that might be best inserted into risk management decisions at that time. We found that historical climate information and long term climate outlooks are less influential in agricultural risk management than current weather, short term forecasts, or monthly climate projections, even though they may, in fact, be more useful to certain types of decision making.
Rights
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
Copyright Owner
The Authors
Copyright Date
2015
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Haigh, Tonya; Takle, Eugene S.; Andresen, Jeffrey; Widhalm, Melissa; Carlton, J. Stuart; and Angel, Jim, "Mapping the decision points and climate information use of agricultural producers across the U.S. Corn Belt" (2015). Agronomy Publications. 126.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/agron_pubs/126
Included in
Agricultural Economics Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Atmospheric Sciences Commons, Climate Commons
Comments
This article is from Climate Risk Management 7 (2015): 20, doi:10.1016/j.crm.2015.01.004. Posted with permission.