RISK IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION & THE VALUE OF HIGH RESOLUTION WEATHER DATA & DISEASE FORECASTS

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1020151
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2019
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2024
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
410 MRAK HALL
DAVIS,CA 95616-8671

Performing Department
Agricultural and Resource Economics

Non Technical Summary
This project supports the mission of the Agricultural Experiment Station by addressing the Hatch Act area(s) of: plant and animal production, protection, and health.Agriculture - whether domestic or international - is inherently risky. How well or poorly producers deal with these risks has direct welfare implications for producers and consumers at both local and societal levels. Furthermore, producers' behavioral responses to these risks can have environmental implications and other spillover effects.Remote sensing, telemetry, GPS and other information technologies have the capacity to collect and quickly process enormous streams of spatial data. This project aims to assess producers' valuation of and response to high resolution weather information and disease and other forecasts. These innovative and precise information products are touted as promising inputs to the production process - inputs that enable producers to refine their expectations and operations - but little is known about how this new information actually shapes producer behavior. Moreover, what is often assumed about these grower responses may not actually be true in practice.The project will include a focus on California agriculture, but the lessons learned from this research will have direct relevance to many other countries. To leverage lessons from the frontier of high resolution information in agriculture, the project will compare the California context to that of other countries with a similar Mediterranean climate in order to assess the prospective value of climate and weather information, including in the context of risky developing country agriculture.

Animal Health Component

60%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

10%

Applied

60%

Developmental

30%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
601	7210	3010	33%
601	1139	3010	34%
601	5220	3010	33%

Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management;

Subject Of Investigation
1139 - Grapes, general/other; 5220 - Pesticides; 7210 - Remote sensing equipment and technology;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;

Keywords

economics

risk

precision agriculture

information

management

automation

virtual reality

Goals / Objectives
This project is motivated by four specific objectives:1. Assess the value of high resolution weather forecasts, including related forecasts (e.g., disease and pest), as a risk management tool for producers of these crops.2. Explore the use of virtual reality and `gameification' to enhance user interfaces and enable producers to more effectively incorporate high resolution information into their production decisions.3. Compare the situation of California producers - risks, responses and the value of information and enhanced user interfaces - to producers from other regions and countries with similar agro-climatic areas in order to evaluate the potential value of high resolution weather information to producers and to society more generally.4. Formulate policy recommendations to improve the delivery and use of weather forecast and related disease forecast information and thereby enable producers to use high resolution weather information more effectively.

Project Methods
Secondary data collection and producer surveys.AB-style testing of different user interfaces to refine decision tools for producers.Parametric and non-parametric production, risk and forecast adoption models.Spatially-explicit panel models of disease management to infer forecast value.Structured case study comparisons between Californian producers of a particular crop and producers of the same crop in countries linked to California through global markets.Policy recommendations and interactive dialogue with growers, growers' associations, agro-services providers and policy makers.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:The project aims to inform the following audiences. 1. Growers who want to improve the cost-effectiveness and efficacy of their pest and disease management. 2. Physical scientists who hope to disseminate disease and weather forecasts to growers in a way that improves production practices from both economic and environmental / societal perspectives, including agricultural engineers who are developing mechanical sensors for detecting powdery mildew in the field. 3. Policy makers and regulators who hope to monitor, control and change pesticide use strategies. 4. Economists who strive to model and understand how growers manage pests and diseases. Through the work of this reporting period, which mainly consisted of finalizing the write up of previous research and preparing grant proposals to fund future work, we maintained our focus on reaching these audiences. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The collaboration with TWN described above provided eight in SQ 2020 with a unique opportunity to collaborate with TWN and the strategy team at The Wonderful Company. This included significant interaction with the leadership team at TWN and generated valuable networks for students interested in continuing to work in this space. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During this reporting period, dissemination consisted entirely of the AJEV publication listed above. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I aim to finalize one remaining working paper on the powdery mildew index for submission to peer-review. This paper has been in draft form for several years due to professional complications with my co-author and collaborator. We have revived the work on the paper and now have a viable submission plan. In addition, I plan to continue participating with the multi-disciplinary team described above to secure funding to conduct new and path-breaking research with grape growers throughout California and Oregon.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During this reporting period and building on the research funded by this project, I collaborated as an activity leader with a multi-disciplinary team on a USDA SCRI proposal. This team consists of Brian Bailey (UC Davis) and colleagues at Oregon State University and University of Utah. We fully revised this $8 million grant proposal based on two earlier rounds of reviews submitted a final proposal in March 2020. Although the proposal was not funded, which was disappointing given the positive signals we had received throughout the review process, the process of building the team and refining the scope and design of the research activities has been a significant and fruitful research undertaking. I remain enthusiastic about this multi-disciplinary team and am confident that once funding support is secured we will catalyze a new wave of research with direct relevance to this Hatch project.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ji Yeon Cheon, Marieke Fenton, Emma Gjerdseth, Qian Wang, Siwei Gao, Hannah Krovetz, Lucy Lu, Lee Shim, Nicholas Williams, and Travis J. Lybbert. 2020. Heterogeneous Benefits of Virus Screening for Grapevines in California American Journal of Enology & Viticulture 712:3, 231-241.