Agriculture is vulnerable to extreme weather shocks. Climate change increases both the frequency and the intensity of such shocks. To safeguard farmers' income and food production, climate adaptation measures are required. This article aims to examine the effectiveness of crop diversification as an adaptation measure, using Italy as a case study. We apply a control function approach to a panel dataset of 20,790 Italian farms, which considers (i) the crop diversification decision and (ii) the influence of crop diversification on farmers' levels of crop income and income risk. We find that, while specialisation can increase income, crop diversification reduces income risk most effectively when growing four different crops. At this level of diversification, income risk is approximately 29% lower as opposed to monoculture farming. Although the Common Agricultural Policy's greening payments for crop diversification make sense from an ecological and risk‐reducing point of view, we find that they are potentially insufficient to cover the loss of expected crop income from diversification. While crop diversification reduces income risk in general, we find no specific benefit in terms of weather shock‐induced risks. This may be because a price increase following a weather shock buffers its adverse effect. However, identifying the reasons requires further research.

中文翻译：

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作物多样化以及天气冲击对意大利农民收入和收入风险的影响


农业容易受到极端天气冲击。气候变化增加了此类冲击的频率和强度。为了保障农民收入和粮食生产，需要采取气候适应措施。本文旨在以意大利为案例研究，探讨作物多样​​化作为适应措施的有效性。我们对 20,790 个意大利农场的面板数据集应用了控制函数方法，该数据集考虑了 (i) 作物多样化决策和 (ii) 作物多样化对农民作物收入水平和收入风险的影响。我们发现，虽然专业化可以增加收入，但当种植四种不同的作物时，作物多样化可以最有效地降低收入风险。在这种多样化水平上，收入风险比单一种植农业低约 29%。尽管共同农业政策为作物多样化提供的绿化补贴从生态和降低风险的角度来看是有意义的，但我们发现它们可能不足以弥补多样化带来的预期作物收入损失。虽然作物多样化总体上降低了收入风险，但我们发现在天气冲击引发的风险方面没有具体的好处。这可能是因为天气冲击后的价格上涨缓冲了其不利影响。然而，找出原因还需要进一步研究。