US agricultural productivity is rising but growing evidence suggests warming temperatures are slowing down this growth. Reaching higher levels of productivity is critical to meeting the demand of a growing population while reducing agriculture's environmental footprint associated with higher input use. Productivity growth has been achieved historically through sustained research and development (R&D) efforts. This study seeks to quantify the R&D investments necessary to compensate for the projected future slowdown of US agricultural productivity arising from anthropogenic climate change. We first rely on official state-level statistics for 1960-2004 to estimate the effect of weather on agricultural Total Factor Productivity. We then couple these estimates with modeled future climate scenarios to quantify the projected effect of anthropogenic climate change. We then finally derive the R&D needs assuming historical returns hold in the future. While this approach does not allow for R&D aimed at increasing climate resilience, we hope our estimates spur debate regarding the emerging costs and technological needs of responding to a changing climate.
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea is Associate Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University in the US. He is an applied economist with interests in agricultural, resource and development economics. At present, his research program is broadly focused on agricultural sustainability issues with particular emphasis on the statistical and econometric evaluation of climate change impacts on agriculture and other sectors of the economy.