Climate Change and Agricultural Lending

Motivation

Agriculture is very vulnerable to the impact of climate change. While many have focused on agricultural yields, few examine the role of financial institutions in responding to such impact. In this project, I have created a novel dataset that helps understand how climate change affects lending to U.S. farms.

Key Facts

1. U.S. Farms Vary by Size
   
2. Climate Change Impact is Significant
   
3. Climate Impact has Regional Heterogeneity
   

Key Documents

• choropleth.R describes how to make a choropleth in R (as in Figure 1)
• ERS_map.ipynb describes how to make a choropleth based on categorical data in Python(as in Figure 3)
• Research in progress; more results, documents, and datasets forthcoming

Acknowledgement

I am grateful for the financial support of the Food System Research Fund (FSRF) and Hammett Fellowship of University of California, Santa Cruz