In this thesis I aim to determine the importance of extreme weather experience in Swedish farmers crop mix decisions. In this way, I add to the evolving field of climate change impacts on farmer livelihoods with a specific focus on perception of risk and locational vulnerabilities. I develop a simplified measure for locationally specific vulnerabilities and position these against the actual crop mixes that Swedish farmers have chosen, to test the influence of extreme rainfall exposure on decision making. My data builds off the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) Database of farm and crop extents for 99% of Swedish agricultural land between 2015 and 2023, and climate data from a large-scale meteorological assessment across Europe. I also account for environmental characteristics that may affect vulnerability and the perception of risk via soil characteristics. I use these data to map functional diversity changes at the farm level over the period, and also for estimating mixed models with two way interaction terms. Based on an adapted Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975), I expect that farms that are more exposed to an increased frequency of extreme weather events (rainfall over the 95th and 99th percentile) year on year, would diversify their crop mix as a risk mitigation practice. However, I find that on average, previous exposure to extreme weather has essentially no effect on the level of diversity a farmer chooses to pursue. When decomposing these findings into different farmer types and environmental conditions there is a moderate level of heterogeneity such that farmers that are more able to take adaptive measures, do. Also, farmers that have planted more diverse farms in the past tend to continue doing so. While those that trend toward less diverse crop mixes tend to respond to exposure by further specializing their crop mixes. These findings suggest that there is a weak underlying preference for higher levels of diversity among Swedish farmers, however the non-climatic factors beyond extreme weather dominate diversity and adaptation decision making. This may be understood as farmers aiming to make rational decisions, but finding their options significantly constrained by the larger political economy in which they find themselves.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-230542 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Eskilson, Evan |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för ekonomisk historia och internationella relationer |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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