Optimizing whole-farm management considering price and climate risks

We investigate impacts of climate change (CC) and likely increases in price risks on income, income variability, utility and on adaptation responses in crop production in Western Switzerland. To this end, a bio-economic model is used that combines a crop growth model with an economic decision model non-parametrically using genetic algorithms. Our analysis focuses on the farm-level, which enables us to integrate a much wider set of potential adaptation responses in our analysis. The model is applied to four scenarios that represent likely changes in environmental conditions due to CC as well as increasing price risks due to market liberalization, and combinations thereof. It shows that CC has the larger influence on farm-level income and utility as well as on management decisions. In contrast, the increasing price variability has only small impacts on input use. However, both CC and increasing price volatility contribute to an increasing farm-level income risk