Droughts and Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change

This article analyses the effects of droughts and climate variability on short-term and medium-term adaptation of Colombian rural households. I measure drought in a Differencesin-Differences (DID) framework, as an alternative to the standard approaches decomposing the effects from climate and yearly weather deviations on agricultural productivity and those using the growing degree days and harmful degree days. In the short-term and mediumterm, rural households adapt to the drought of 2010 by increasing the total area planted in crops and livestock, (increasing also the total gross agricultural productivity in value terms) and by working more on the farm. The droughts also increased the use of external sources of water in the farm and made rural households postpone non-housing investments in the farm. I find heterogeneous effects according to the long run mean of temperature in the municipality. Higher temperature affects positively gross agricultural productivity in low-temperature municipalities but negatively high-temperature municipalities. Cereals and coffee seem to benefit from higher temperatures, while vegetables and fruits are more affected.