Yangjie Wang¹, Jikun Huang², and Jinxia Wang²

　　(1. Business School, Central South University, Changsha, China

　　2. School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China)

　　The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing along with the global climate change, making great challenge on agricultural production and food security in China. The question of how to adapt to these extreme events through appropriate measures has attracted great attention from both policy makers and researchers. Based on a large-scale field survey in rural China, this study is to empirically explore the impacts of extreme events (e.g., drought and flood) on rice production, identify how farmers adjust their production practices, particular farm management, to extreme weather events, and evaluate the effectiveness of these adaptation measures in mitigating the impact of extreme events on rice output. Our econometric analyses show that the severity of drought and flood in the study areas significantly increases the risk and downside risk of rice yield. The applied farm management measures respond to severe drought and flood and can be considered as adaptation to climate change. Farmer’s adaptation through adjusting farm management can both increase the mean of rice yield and reduce the risk and downside risk exposure of rice yield. This research is proposed to help increase the understanding on the impacts of and adaptation to extreme events on agriculture, and to provide useful inputs for government’s decision making on climate change adaptation and agricultural development.