Impacts of Farmers’ Adaptation to Extreme Weather Events on Rice Productivity

Floods and drought are the extreme weather events that pose major concerns on rice farmers in Thailand, particularly those in the Chao Phraya River Basin (CPRB). To mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events on the rice production and their livelihoods, some of these farm households have undertaken some adaptation strategies, such as shifting crop calendar, changing rice varieties, etc. Using data from the survey of farm household in the CPRB, this study highlights the adaptation strategies adopted by farm households and analyzes the impacts of adaptation to extreme weather events on rice productivity using the endogenous switching model. Our results show that adaptation to floods that took place in CPRB increases the wet-season rice productivity. The unconditional impacts of adaptation on wet-season rice productivity are around 120 kilograms per rai (approximately 0.16 hectares). The treatment effect, which captures the counterfactual case whereby farm households who adapted instead chose not to adapt at the decision stage, shows that the impacts of adaptation on wet-season rice productivity is around 31 kilograms per rai, i.e. farm households who adapted to extreme weather events would have produced 31 kilograms less per rai if they did not adapt.