Abstracts

Climate Variability and Quebec Agriculture: Lessons for Farm Adaptation from an Analysis of the Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Crop Insurance Claims In Quebec

Christopher Bryant¹, B. Singh, S. Desroches, P. Thomassin, L. Baker, C. Madramootoo, K. Delusca,and M. Savoie
¹University of Montreal
bryan94@attglobal.net

An important approach to understanding the adaptive capacity of agriculture to climate variability is to investigate recent climatic extremes and to explore farmers' adaptive behaviour to them. As a first step towards this, data from La Financière agricole du Québec on farmer claims for compensation under various crop insurance programmes are analysed by crop and region for the period 1982 to 2003. Peaks in claims related to " climatic causes " are identified, both temporally and spatially. This analysis is then confronted with an historical regional scale analysis of appropriate sets of agro climatic indices, which vary by crop. The discussion of the results considers the extent to which: 1) the variability in peaks in claims and subsequent participation in the programmes support the perspective that crop insurance may have a retarding effect on adaptation versus crop insurance as a normal component of risk management; and 2) the spatio-temporal variability in claims suggests the presence of mal adaptation to climate conditions. Finally, we show how the answers to these questions have informed the choice of areas for more detailed farm-level work on the extent to which farmers have adapted to specific patterns of climatic variability over the past 20 years or so and what factors influence their adaptive capacity.

2005-04-05