The influence of extreme weather events on farm economic performance – a case study from Serbia

Abstract

Western Balkan region, particularly Serbia, is faced with an increased frequency of extreme weather events, as a consequence of global climate change. However, there is still no enough research on how the effects of extreme weather events could be measured on the farm level. More importantly, there is no standard international methodology that is used regularly to address the issue. Therefore, the aim of this research was to evaluate the effects of extreme weather events on business performances of two the most common farm types in Serbia. To achieve this goal, the authors performed a financial loss assessment on a farm level. Panel models and R software environment were used to perform a multiple regression analysis allowing to indicate determinants of financial loss indicator depending on the farm’s production type. The results indicated that performance of both farm types is more influenced by drought than by floods. The regression analysis revealed that for both farm types financial stress is the most important independent variable.