The Economic Content of U2U's Climate Responsive Decision Tools.

Decision support tools should provide context, allow for “what-ifs” and provide the consequences for alternative paths. All of these are likely to have some direct or indirect economic context or content that aids corn producers in their decisions. There are 5 tools from the U2U project, two of which have explicit economic content while the other three have implicit economic content. We describe the implicit economic content of the three and demonstrate the economic content of one other tool to highlight the importance of economic content for agricultural producers in such decision tools. The Ag Climate View and Climate Patterns View decision tools are primarily context tools. We have learned in this project that the key issue is not whether there is agreement on climate change causes, but whether information can be provided which assists a producer making decisions that are going to be affected by weather and climate. This includes longer term forward looking decisions, like irrigation investments that will depend upon risk based judgments about the future. The Ag Climate View puts growing cycles into historical context allowing the user to assess local temperature, precipitation, and crop yields in the context of weather variables. The Climate Patterns Viewer connects global climate conditions, including El Nino, to local climate impacts. While these do not have explicit economic content, they are important in shaping the decision perception with respect to risk trade-offs. The growing degree day decision tool has more direct economic relevance in terms of activity planning, input selection, marketing, and crop insurance decisions. Finally, a review of the Corn Split N decision tool illustrates the direct and indirect economic trade-offs from critical nitrogen use decisions in the context of weather and operational capacity.