suppose the climate change causes regular destructive hurricanes in Central America. Will this make their cash-crop agricultural industries non-competitive with those in Brazil and Colombia/Venezuela, i.e. in the interior of the continent where the hurricane is less felt, if at all? Or is the aggregate production of tropical cash crops now low enough that the South American farmers would not be able to fill the entire demand, hence leaving market share room for more expensive commodities from the Central America?
Also, are there crops that are less vulnerable to hurricane damage that farmers in affected areas could try switching to?
Very difficult to make any kind of blanket statements to such broad hypotheticals, given the imaginary weather changes and the resulting fictional economics.
What crops are you considering?
why is such weather imaginary and economics fictional? Reputedly some big hurricanes during 2000s made a lot of agricultural damage, including Katrina. If there were more such hurricanes, maybe the farmers would be forced to buy more expensive insurance against crop loss and hence lose out on price against competitors from safer areas?
Florida agriculture seems to be competitive despite its being hit regularly by hurricanes. Honestly, what you’re doing is noticing Honduras when it’s in the news every three years or so by being hit by a hurricane, not the other two years and the vast majority of the third when crops are growing just fine.
Polycarp,
so what conclusions should we draw here? Is agriculture in Florida and Honduras more efficient than in Brazil or let’s say favored by a better tax regime? After all, if farmer A loses his crops every third year and farmer B doesn’t, wouldn’t farmer B sell for cheaper without wasting money on crop insurance? Or is the crop destruction now in practice infrequent enough to make no noticeable difference?