Climate Maize
Agricultural Climate Analysis
Background
This project was devised as a result of my love of gardening. While planning my planting schedule for 2024 I became curious about what plants would grow best in my region. This introduced me to Plant Hardiness Zones (PHZ), a term devised to classify areas across the US in terms of average minimum temperature. I identified this classification as a potential marker for climate change in the US and a way to predict climate change for the country.
Objective
To predict the effects of climate change in the US, focused on the agricultural sector.
To build an interactive dashboard visually showcasing well-curated results of an advanced exploratory analysis conducted in Python.
Context
This is a project I created as a part of the Career Foundry data analytics course.
I decided to use data sets from the United States Department of Agriculture as a reliable source of agricultural sales and production. I selected corn as the crop to research because of its value to the American economy (most exported and domestically consumed crop) and the extensiveness of the data reporting from reliable sources.
Data Gathering
Identifying the right data for this project took a large amount of time and analysis.
Why corn?
It is a vital crop to the American diet and economy both domestic and internationally.
“Corn is the primary U.S. feed grain, accounting for more than 95 percent of total feed grain production and use.”
“The United States is the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of corn in the world.”
- US Department of Agriculture, 2023
Cleaning and Joining data
Geographical - joining of climate data onto the matching geographic location and its corresponding corn production data. This step allowed me to create geographic visualizations of the data, vital to understanding the changes occurring in different locations.
Questions to Answer
What areas are most important for crop production?
The upper Midwest is the most productive region by far.
Climate zone 5B contains the most production, followed by 5A and 6A
Which regions are most at risk?
The border between PHZ 6A and 6B - the largest drop in production level occurs between these two zones.
Have rising temperatures already had a significant effect on corn production?
No, in fact sales and production have both increased significantly over time despite a drop in arable acreage.
The reason? Inflation and advances in agricultural technology.
Recommendations
What can be done to mitigate the damage?
Diversify - Farms in at-risk regions (6A/6B border) should consider what crops they can transition to in the future as corn becomes less viable
Technology - Continuing to improve farming tech will help farmers make more with less.
Arable Land Reclamation - improve the viability of land in the US. This has the compounding effect of improving food accessibility for Americans as arable land becomes more common and improves air quality by increasing the amount of natural land.
Act Fast - Major corn regions 5A and 5B are still one zone away from a major loss of production. Action needs to happen now to ensure successful transitions for farms.