Climate Resiliency in Arkansas Delta Agriculture

Climate change has been shown to affect many sectors of life and industry, including both direct and indirect effects regarding agricultural production, which may lead to economic impacts. To determine the resilience of Arkansas agriculture, 30 years of annual crop yield data for corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans were analyzed alongside temperature and precipitation trends, both annually and during the April through October growing season. This study utilized NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) and PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) data to determine the effects climate change has had on agricultural yield in the Arkansas Delta over the past 30 years. Descriptive analysis showed strong increasing trends in crop yield across all four crops (R2 > 0.71), with yield doubling in three of four crops over 30 years. Temperature and precipitation showed increasing trends both annually and during the growing season, with correlation analysis showing growing season temperature being negatively correlated (-0.30) with growing season precipitation. All crops showed negligible to low association (0.03 0.22) with temperature, and low to moderate association (0.24 - 0.46) with precipitation variables. The results of this study show that Arkansas crop agriculture appears to be both resilient to climate change conditions thus far, although there may be a tipping point in production if current trends hold.