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- Title
Weather Index Insurance Can Offset Heat‐Induced Rice Losses Under Global Warming.
- Authors
Zhang, J.; Zhang, Z.; Wang, C. Z.; Wang, X. H.; Zhang, L. L.; Ma, X. L.; Tao, F. L.
- Abstract
Extreme heat is one major warming‐related threat to food security and farmers' livelihood, especially in Asia. As an economic adaptation, weather index insurance (WII) can transfer such weather‐related risks, secure farms' incomes, and recover agricultural systems soon after yield losses. However, few relevant studies evaluate its potential in the warming future. Here, we investigated the efficiency of WII to compensate for future heat‐induced yield losses (YHloss ${Y}_{Hloss}$) under SSP1‐2.6, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP5‐8.5 (Shared Socioecomoic Pathways, SSP) in southern China, a typical smallholder‐dominated rice production area in the world. Combining a crop model with machine learning, we found that heat‐induced rice vulnerability showed large spatial variability. Rice vulnerability and warming scenarios co‐determined future YHloss ${Y}_{Hloss}$ and economic losses at the county scale, with more significant losses in the mid‐far future (2051–2100) than in the near future (2021–2050). Compared with the historical period (1961–2010), YHloss ${Y}_{Hloss}$ will increase approximately by up to 5% under SSP1‐2.6, 18% under SSP3‐7.0%, and 26% under SSP5‐8.5. As an ex‐ante strategy, county‐specific WII will effectively improve (by up to 13%) and stabilize (by up to 36%) farmers' incomes, even though the pure premium rate will increase by 10% at 2050 and by 30% at 2100. Overall, our study demonstrates that WII is an effective economic adaption in the future for assisting smallholder livelihood in a developing country. WII has the potential to be applied in other countries for other crop failures to mitigate climate‐related risk for global food systems in the future. Plain Language Summary: The rice‐producing farmers of east and southeast Asia are particularly vulnerable to yield losses because of their smallholder status, poor infrastructure, and increasing heat extremes from global warming. In this study, we applied crop model and machine learning methods to evaluate the yield and economic losses for rice farmers in southern China in the warmer future under different scenarios, and then analyzed the future implementation of weather index insurance (WII) for smallholders under the warming world. We found that yield and economic losses tended to worsen as we moved closer to the end of the century. However, WII could effectively protect farmers by compensating for these heat‐induced losses, even though the pure premium rate of such insurance protection products would also increase. Overall, our study proved the potential of WII as an adaptation strategy to global warming for smallholder rice farmers in China, which can be extended to other crops and regions. Key Points: Heat‐induced rice yield losses in China will increase by up to 5%, 18%, and 26% at the end of this century under three SSPsThe pure premium rate of weather index insurance (WII) in China will increase by 10% at 2050 and 30% at 2100As an ex‐ante strategy, county‐specific WII will effectively improve (by up to 13%) and stabilize (by up to 36%) farmers' income
- Subjects
CHINA; GLOBAL warming; INSURANCE; RICE farmers; INSURANCE rates; RICE; DEVELOPING countries; RICE farming
- Publication
Earth's Future, 2022, Vol 10, Issue 11, p1
- ISSN
2328-4277
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2021EF002534