Can policies like crop insurance create disincentives for farmers to adopt practices that improve climate resilience? This is one of the questions FSRI PhD Fellow Elizabeth Espinosa-Uquillas is investigating.
“I want to look at how policies and climate conditions affect or encourage adaptation behaviors among farmers,” Espinosa-Uquillas said. A PhD candidate in complex systems and data science, she uses national data sets and satellite imagery to study several practices that can strengthen farmers’ resilience, including cover cropping, tile drainage, irrigation, and crop switching.
By comparing regions with different infrastructure, policies, and agricultural systems, she examines how farmers’ decisions vary across the country. She is particularly interested in whether economic policies influence farmers’ willingness to adopt climate‑resilient practices.
"This is a group of people who have always been adapting,” said Espinosa-Uquillas. “However, we expect that climate change is going to increase, and that's going to be riskier and more costly for everyone, not just for farmers. So that's why one of the very important parts of my research is to look at how economic policies influence farmers' behaviors.”
With a background in data science and economics, Espinosa-Uquillas uses a complex systems approach to study how farmers make decisions to adopt climate resilient practices. While traditional economics often treats individuals as homogeneous agents, she says, complex systems recognize that people differ, learn, and evolve. This perspective is especially useful for studying farmers’ behaviors, a system that is highly interconnected and constantly changing.
A major focus of her work is examining economic policies that shape farmer behavior such as conservation programs, commodity programs, and crop insurance. For example, crop insurance may unintentionally discourage farmers from adopting climate‑resilient practices if they feel their crops are already financially protected to weather risks. When the benefits of adaptation don't outweigh the costs, farmers may be less likely to change their practices. Crop insurance currently covers about 89% of the acreage of eight major U.S. field crops, and the federal government is projected to spend $3.8 billion annually on crop insurance subsidies.
Understanding agriculture policy through a food systems lens is essential because food production is shaped by many interconnected aspects from climate, markets, infrastructure, policy, and individual decision‑making. Changes in one part of the system can ripple across others in unexpected ways. This broader perspective is especially important as climate change accelerates, and pressures on the food system intensify.
“We know that climate change implies large costs for society, and we know those costs are going to increase,” said Espinosa-Uquillas. “One of the ways to alleviate those costs is to make changes to the way we live, and the same applies to farmers.” She hopes that this research can inform policymakers and the public about how to address future climate change policies.
About the Food Systems Research Institute:
The Food Systems Research Institute (FSRI) at the University of Vermont (UVM) funds collaborative research that puts people and the planet first, unites disciplines and communities, and answers complex questions about food systems.
The FSRI gives researchers the freedom, resources, and time to engage community stakeholders, including decision-makers, farmers, and food systems actors, about issues and opportunities across our food system. This results in relevant, widely disseminated research that informs policies, practices, and programs locally and regionally for a more resilient and accessible food future for all.
