Climate change and the socioeconomics of global food production: A quantitative analysis of how socioeconomic factors influence the vulnerability of grain crops to drought

in 2008 to advance public and private action on climate change through innovative, rigorous research. The Centre is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and has five inter-linked research programmes: 1. Developing climate science and economics 2. Climate change governance for a new global deal 3. Adaptation to climate change and human development 4. Governments, markets and climate change mitigation 5. The Munich Re Programme-Evaluating the economics of climate risks and opportunities in the insurance sector More information about the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy can be found This working paper is intended to stimulate discussion within the research community and among users of research, and its content may have been submitted for publication in academic journals. It has been reviewed by at least one internal referee before publication. The views expressed in this paper represent those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Jami Dixon for collecting data, and Esben Almquist and Alexander Walther for their Matlab scripts. Abstract The impact of climate change on agriculture depends on the environmental and socioeconomic contexts in which the changes occur. However, current tools to anticipate climate change impacts focus almost entirely on biological and environmental processes. For example, most large-scale crop models can identify where yields are sensitive to new temperatures and CO 2 concentrations but do not include any socioeconomic factors that may enable (or inhibit) farmers' abilities to adapt. To address this gap, this paper uses national scale socioeconomic , meteorological and agricultural data to identify socioeconomic factors that have made rice, maize and wheat production resilient and sensitive to past droughts. Results suggest that cereal harvests in countries undergoing economic and political transition are most vulnerable to droughts and that factors related to investments in the agriculture sector (such as the amount of fertilizer used by farmers or the amount of Gross Domestic Product produced by a nation's agricultural sector) help reduce vulnerability. While results are limited by data quality and availability, this study provides preliminary quantitative insights that highlight important areas for further research on the socioeconomic factors that create vulnerability to climate change.