Rain follows the forest: Land use policy, climate change, and adaptation

Abstract

Human actions can alter the regional climate, particularly via land use. We analyze the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a large-scale forestation program in the 1930s across the US Midwest. This program led to a decades-long increase in precipitation and decrease in temperature. Changes extended to downwind unforested areas up to 200km away---enabling us to study climate adaptation and its economic consequences. Where growing conditions improved, farmers expanded corn acreage, switched to more water-intensive production, and experienced less crop failure. In a period of intense farm consolidation and mechanization, this led to the survival of more small farms and a reduction in the use of farm machines. This paper highlights the endogeneity of climate to land use change, and the potential for tree planting to regionally mitigate climate change impacts with lasting consequences for agricultural development.

Keywords: Climate Change, Forests, Adaptation, Land Use, Economic History

JEL Classification: Q1, Q5, N5, 013