Rising temperatures due to climate change can increase dust particulate concentrations leading to lower crop productivity and resulting in a decline in farmland values. Using pooled data with 9,300 observations representing 7,987 agricultural parcels that were sold in the Central Valley of California between 2010 and 2017, we estimate a Hedonic regression equation with month- and year-of-sale fixed effects. Ricardian estimates indicate that dust levels have a negative net effect on farmland values and are highly significant with an inverted U-shaped response curve.
How growers adjust land-use decisions to a changing climate has important consequences for food supplies and environmental impact. In this paper, we examine changes in agricultural land use as an adaptive response to long-term climate impacts, using unique parcel-level data in Central Valley, California – a major agricultural hub worldwide. We combine parcel-level characteristics data with cropland data and long-run historical climate variables to assess the climate-induced land-use transition. We find that growers in the Central Valley are transitioning from annual crops to perennial crops in response to changing climates. Analysis of land-use with heterogeneous land quality suggests that the share of perennial crops increased 11% in high-quality lands and 7% in low-quality lands.