Changing the University goals of sustainability and food options would require cooperation of members of the administrative authority, of whom should recognize the extreme destructions of animal agriculture and should seek to do their part to eliminate the unsustainable methods. With the approval of these individuals, the food preparers would attend a class or a workshop in which they would learn the basics of a plant-based diet. Afterwards, the food preparers would be given the option to adjust the menu already at hand, to accommodate a plant-based diet; or to create a whole new menu from scratch. Eliminating all foods that contain animal products or bi-products is unreasonable; – as not all individuals care about the well being of themselves, other individuals, animals, or the environment – therefore, such options would still be available. However, like new students are taught time management, they would also be taught the importance of being aware of what one feeds their body and the unsustainable methods of animal agriculture. Weather is a key input for agricultural production. A vast economic literature is dedicated to the role of weather information in grower decision making, market outcomes, and commodity futures. On one hand, better information about the weather can help growers optimize their use of other inputs, increasing efficiency in production and avoiding costs related with uncertainty. On the other hand, some economic models can show—under some assumptions—that more precise weather information might not be welfare increasing,blueberry packaging as ex-ante uncertainty about the weather can lead to extra investment in other inputs.

That is, when growers have better forecast of adverse weather, output would be further reduced from its level under uncertainty . There is also some concern about weather forecasts acting as signals for collusion among growers, but simple price mechanisms can technically reduce output and welfare with better weather prediction even in a competitive market . Notwithstanding these warnings by economists, the economic gains from weather information are usually deemed positive, even if their magnitude is sometimes contested . Much of the seminal economic literature on the value of weather information was written between the 1960’s and the 1990’s, when significant improvements in forecasting was achieved with the advance of computing power and complex meteorology models.While literature about the value of weather information seems to have plateaued in the 2000’s, perhaps as forecasting technologies matured and stabilized, the surge of precision agriculture could re-ignite interest in this topic. Heterogeneity within fields and precise growing strategies, based on exact measurement of weather variables , is increasingly the subject of research and technological application . Uncertainty regarding real-time weather on micro scales poses conceptually similar questions to those dealt with by the weather forecast literature in the past. At the same time, new discussions on the value of weather information and the government’s role in providing ithave been revived with advances in remote sensing and satellite technology . The technical and scientific capabilities required to gather and analyze weather data, as well as the non-rival nature of weather information as a product, meant that much of the development of weather services has been done by governments.

Johnson and Holt point out that this led to a significant economic literature, assessing the potential gains from better weather information given the public expenditures. Their survey of the relevant literature mostly includes econometric studies, where the output gains from improved forecasting are estimated and the economic gains from providing them are then calculated per hectare. Other methodologies include survey based valuation, paired with economic data and modeling. Anaman and Lellyett assess the gains from a weather information system for cotton growers in Australia, finding the benefit-cost ratio of the system at 12.6 . Klockow, McPherson, and Sutter conduct a survey based study of the value of the Mesonet network in Oklahoma. Less than 4% of Oklahoma’s cropland is irrigated, and the modest value they find for Mesonet information mostly comes from risk management. Interestingly, there are few such examples of an economic study about a specific weather information system in the published literature, as opposed to numerous studies on the value of information for growers. Johnson and Holt do mention, for example, that weather forecast services in Sweden and New Zealand have gone through “extensive privatization”, but do not cite any articles analyzing these decisions. The first part of this dissertation is an analysis of economic gains from the California Irrigation Management Information System , a network of weather stations and data center run by the California Department of Water Resources. For over 30 years, this system has been used by growers, consultants, and other users in California agriculture. This chapter presents the preliminary findings from a thorough report on the value of CIMIS, showing substantial gains not only in agriculture but also in landscape management, regulation, research, and industry.Climate change poses a major challenge for agriculture, as predicted shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns around the world affect agricultural productivity . Early studies on climate change in agriculture first focused on the impacts of changing mean temperatures, and more recent empirical literature emphasizes the importance of temperature variance and extreme heat on yields, especially during the growing season . For example, Schlenker and Roberts show sharp drops in the yields of corn, soybean, and cotton, when exposed to degree days above 28–300C. Similar findings have been replicated in various crops and locations around the world. Climate scientists affirm that heat waves will increase in frequency and duration as the process of climate change advances .

Researching yield responses to high temperatures, especially when the relationship seems non-linear orthreshold like, is therefore essential for prediction of climate change effects on agriculture. This can only be done with adequate weather information. Chapter 3 presents an analysis of the yield response of pistachios to hot winters. This is also a temperature distribution tail problem, at least when looking at temperatures between November and March. Daytime temperatures in California winters have been rising in the past 20 years, and are predicted to rise further in the future. This can have detrimental implications for pistachios, a major California crop, but estimating the yield response function has been a challenge so far. I use CIMIS data and innovative techniques to recover this relationship and predict the potential threat of climate change to California pistachios. It turns out that Pistachios, a billion dollar crop in California, could be threatened by warming winter within the next 20 years. While the scope and magnitude of our current climate crisis might be unprecedented in human history, this is not the first time that humans are facing climatic challenges in agriculture. Olmstead and Rhode show how,blueberry packaging box through the 19th and 20th centuries in North America, wheat growers managed “…to push wheat cultivation repeatedly into environments once thought too arid, too variable, and too harsh to farm”. The transition was made possible mostly by the development of new varieties. Plant breeding toward that end required information on the climate both in the progenitor native areas and the areas where the eventual new varieties would be planted . Adaptation to climate can be on the physical dimension as well. Specific interventions can be designed to change the physical environment surrounding plants. The most obvious intervention is building irrigation systems, to compensate for lack of adequate rainfall and soil moisture. But examples of adaptation to temperature by physical means exist as well. This type of intervention is common for a left tail effect: frost. A short lasting fall or spring frost lasts a few hours and can cause substantial damages. To avoid it, only a slight increase in temperature is required, and growers know how to do that. Some examples for dealing with frost are hundreds of years old. The Tiwanaku civilization formed a system of raised fields on the shores of lake Titikaka in the 7–12 centuries C.E. Fields in select locations were raised with extra soil, up to a few feet above the ground level. Water from nearby springs was diverted and run through canals dug in these raised fields. This provided not only moisture for the plants, but also converted the top soil level into a large heat storage unit.

On frost nights, which are common in this high area, the heat stored in the soil kept the near-surface temperatures on raised fields higher than the normal air temperatures, preventing plants from freezing . Without modern weather instruments, the Tiwanaku realized that slight differences in ambient temperatures can have crucial consequences, and planned their fields according to their understanding of the climate. This system yielded far better than regular dry farming practiced before inthis area, and supported a larger population than the one residing on the lake shores in the 1990’s. Eventually, as climate became drier, the water level of lake Titikaka dropped and the springs dried up, resulting in the collapse of the Tiwanaku culture . Despite its eventual failure, this technology was successful in abating frost damage for centuries, maintaining a population of hundreds of thousands and showing the power of human intervention on the field level to tackle a temperature distribution tail challenge. In Europe, traditional methods of dealing with frosts in vineyards include lighting small fires or “frost candles”. A more modern approach uses big fans, circulating the cold air in the inverted layer with the warmer air on top of it. Farmers have been using “air disturbance technology” in the US since the 1950’s . Wind generators are used around the world to protect wine grapes, fruits, and even tea from spring frosts. In some cases, a similar effect can be achieved with sprinklers . Interestingly, little economic literature has focused on air disturbance technologies. Stewart, Katz, and Murphy assess the value of weather information in the Yakima Valley of central Washington, in the context of frost prediction and air disturbance technologies. This descriptive study was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Searching the EconLit database for “frost” in article titles returns only four results involving actual frost in agriculture, none dealing with temperature altering. A search in the abstracts of papers published by the American Journal of Agricultural Economics results in two papers, neither mentioning air disturbance technologies. The seeming dis-interest in these technologies is even more peculiar in 2019, when weather information is more accessible than ever: air disturbance systems are now sold with online communication to weather services, with the option for automatic operation in case of frost, and can often be switched on and off remotely. They are probably more efficient and valuable than ever before, given advances in technology and the high value of certain frost-sensitive crops. Technologies such as air disturbance are examples of a concept I call “Micro-Climate Engineering” . These are relatively small interventions in temperature distributions, limited in space and time, which aim to avoid the nonlinear effects of the extremes. The frost examples discussed above deal with left tail effects. There are also technologies available to deal with right tail effects, which is the focus of my last chapter. The final chapter of this dissertation deals with an MCE proposal for California pistachios. Chapter 3 deals with the threat of warm winters on pistachios, estimating the potential losses to this high value crop from climate change. Chapter 4 deals with a proposed solution. The MCE technology proposed for this challenge is spraying the dormant trees with kaolin clay, a non-toxic white substance which reflects the sunlight. Sprayed trees have been shown to experience lower temperatures than control trees, and their yields were higher. This intervention requires precise hourly measures of temperature, so growers can track the buildup of special temperature metrics and decide if and how much treatment is required. Using the pistachio yield-temperature response, estimated in the previous chapter, I build a model that integrates MCE in the pistachio market. The model can be solved with and without the option to use MCE, under various weather realizations. The value of MCE for California pistachios is calculated as the difference in welfare measures attained in each case. The expected net present value of MCE in pistachios for 2020-2040 is assessed in billions of US dollars. This is yet another example of the potential use of weather information for dealing with climate change challenges in agriculture. Micro-Climate Engineering might remind some readers of Geo-Engineering, a controversial climate change adaptation concept.