The Impacts Of Meteorological Disasters On Agricultural Production In China

Climate change,characterized by global warming and the increase of extreme weather and climate events,is continuously affecting natural systems and human society.China is the sensitive zone of global climate change and one of the most seriously affected countries by meteorological disasters,which are characterized by high occurrence frequency,wide impact range and strong disaster intensity.Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy as well as the most susceptible economic sector to the natural climate.The frequency and intensity of meteorological disasters caused by climate change have increased significantly,which has aggravated the instability of agricultural production in China and increased the exogenous risks faced by agricultural production.Since taking active measures to deal with the impact of meteorological disasters has always reached attention in the Chinese society,the No.1document of the Central Committee has introduced policies of meteorological services for 19 consecutive years.Therefore,meteorological disaster is not only an environmental problem,but also an economic development problem.Based on fully absorbing the nutrition of natural science,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to study the impact of meteorological disaster on China’s agricultural production from the perspective of economics.This paper uses the theoretical knowledge of economics,meteorology and other relevant disciplines comprehensively to explore the impact of meteorological disasters on China’s agricultural production from theoretical and empirical perspectives.Firstly,the development of agricultural production and the change trend of agricultural disaster in China during the research period were summarized,and the comprehensive index of meteorological disaster intensity covering drought,flood,heat wave and cold wave was constructed to depict the occurrence intensity of meteorological disaster in China.Secondly,using the agricultural and climate county-level panel data of China from 1981 to 2015,the fixed panel model,stochastic frontier production function model and input factor and productivity determination model were used to empirically investigate the overall impact of meteorological disasters on agricultural output in China,and capture the heterogeneity of meteorological disasters between time,space and crops.On this basis,the internal mechanism of meteorological disaster affecting agricultural output through input factors and agricultural total factor productivity was identified.Thirdly,the dynamic panel model and the long differences model were used to quantify the adaptation of China’s agricultural production under the influence of meteorological disasters.The adjustment ability of different input factors and crops to withstand the impact of meteorological disasters in the short and medium term was discussed,and the offset of the short-term impact of long-term adaptation was estimated.Further,based on the estimated coefficient of empirical study and combined with different future climate change scenarios in economics and meteorology,the impacts of future medium and long-term meteorological disaster changes on China’s agricultural production under the background of global warming were predicted.Finally,the policy implications were put forward to deal with meteorological disasters,to provide reference for the sustainable development of agriculture in China.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)The disaster situation of crops in China shows a trend of repeated fluctuation overall,and more than half of the disaster area has resulted in substantial yield reduction,showing obvious characteristics of regional,cyclical and disaster species concentration.(2)Meteorological disasters had a significant negative impact on China’s agricultural output.The increase in the intensity of meteorological disasters would lead to a decrease of 7.79% in agricultural output,and there were significant differences in disaster types,crop categories,time and regional distribution.The mechanism analysis results showed that the increase of meteorological disaster intensity would increase the input factors of labor and fertilizer but reduce the input of agricultural machinery.The increase of meteorological disaster intensity also has a significant negative effect on agricultural total factor productivity.(3)The adaptation of agricultural production in China under the influence of meteorological disasters varies in different periods,and different crops have different resilience to withstand the impact of meteorological disasters.In the short and medium term,labor input experienced a change trend of first rising and then declining,and the negative influence of agricultural total factor productivity decreased significantly.In the long run,the adaptation of both input factors and total factor productivity has been quantified,which confirms the existence of long-term adaptability in agricultural production,especially the important contribution of agricultural technological progress.(4)The results of future predictions based on economics and meteorology show that although climate adaptation is occurring,the increasing intensity of meteorological disasters caused by global warming will have a considerable negative impact on China’s agricultural production,regardless of the forecasting climate models and scenarios.This paper contributes to the existing literature in three major aspects.Firstly,in terms of the research perspective,the impact of meteorological disasters on agricultural production is more likely to be the result of the joint action of various meteorological disasters.This paper focuses on the assessment of the comprehensive impact of meteorological disasters,which improves the overall thinking for agriculture.Secondly,in terms of research methods and data,this paper uses exogenous climate data such as temperature and precipitation to build a meteorological disaster intensity index system.It overcomes the endogenous problems existing in using social and economic data such as crop disaster area,and greatly fills the shortcomings of existing studies.Finally,in terms of the research contents,this paper identifies the internal mechanism of meteorological disaster affecting agricultural output through various input factors and agricultural total factor productivity,and scientifically evaluates the long-term adaptation,which draws reliable conclusions.