Northward Crop Migration Under Climate Change Erodes Farmer Price Protection at a Cost of $5 Billion per Year

Northward Crop Migration Under Climate Change Erodes Farmer Price Protection at a Cost of $5 Billion per Year | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Northward Crop Migration Under Climate Change Erodes Farmer Price Protection at a Cost of $5 Billion per Year Keshav Krishnan This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9201219/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate change is shifting where crops grow, yet commodity futures contracts remain anchored to delivery points established in the nineteenth century. Whether this growing geographic mismatch imposes measurable costs on farmers has not been quantified. Using a novel county-level price dataset (193,891 observations across 2,911 counties), we show that northern corn counties receive $0.25/bu less than the national average—a discount that has widened significantly over the past two decades (τ = −0.321,p = 0.0067). The soybean price penalty per 100 km of delivery distance has tripled (p = 0.0239). Basis volatility trends upward in migration-exposed counties (corn p = 0.0008; soybeans p = 0.0001), hedge ratios deteriorate with distance from delivery (p =. 0.0001), and geographic features carry statistically significant predictive power for basis dynamics (Diebold–Mariano p < 0.0001). In Canada, crop centroids shifted 2.03◦ southward (p < 0.0001), confirming that the mechanism operates regardless of migration direction. Geographic mismatch between production and delivery infrastructure costs U.S. farmers $5.34 billion annually (95% CI: $4.26–6.41 B). Climate-driven migration adds $0.11 billion per year to this total—a share that is growing as production continues to shift. Addressing this requires CME delivery-point modernisation and expanded USDA price reporting Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change impacts/Governance Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences/Environmental impact Social science/Geography Social science/Economics Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change policy Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files supplementary.pdf Supplementary Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9201219","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":614704397,"identity":"689aa251-ea00-470e-995d-932f1eb5606c","order_by":0,"name":"Keshav Krishnan","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABCElEQVRIie3PsUrDQBzH8Z8EkuVK1gtX0le4EEgWH6Yl0C4JOmZwcMoNtrqmb9FHiByY5dwdHCqFc3HoJAiintjBIaHt1uG+cNx/uA/cH7DZTjAKuL83h/M3hOacNcD4cBLDTAeS3TC53kcCIfT6o0KcCk9vLq+eZ3f0omm25RS+uOl0jKg0WlRIhpKkcf2gi2Wd4b5WOah6XHWRkOYuJer7nDrEZcSVxeopgxxUJTgtusnoVQefCoZ4mpEvOeP7CKNIGCmRUMcMg0qOdyTvJcE8T9iwRGw+ZsitjJbzDTe7TEnfLrRtdfDGEdV+az72Lke+N3lZb8ss9MWik/RHjntus9lstv/9AN/fWTtkkXOmAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6774-5106","institution":"Olmsted LLC","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Keshav","middleName":"","lastName":"Krishnan","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-23 13:36:56","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9201219/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9201219/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":107480925,"identity":"cfc4a628-ceed-42b7-a013-b6044523676a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-22 02:14:30","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2102705,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"main.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9201219/v1_covered_1c713152-075c-4a54-a113-135eec423830.pdf"},{"id":105786890,"identity":"407158a2-cd89-4683-9f29-a1c4803bb94b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-31 06:50:48","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":115843,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Supplementary Information","description":"","filename":"supplementary.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9201219/v1/b3b1dce08d70d415aa61d790.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Northward Crop Migration Under Climate Change Erodes Farmer Price Protection at a Cost of $5 Billion per Year","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9201219/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9201219/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Climate change is shifting where crops grow, yet commodity futures contracts remain anchored to delivery points established in the nineteenth century. Whether this growing geographic mismatch imposes measurable costs on farmers has not been quantified. Using a novel county-level price dataset (193,891 observations across 2,911 counties), we show that northern corn counties receive $0.25/bu less than the national average—a discount that has widened significantly over the past two decades (τ = −0.321,p = 0.0067). The soybean price penalty per 100 km of delivery distance has tripled (p = 0.0239). Basis volatility trends upward in migration-exposed counties (corn p = 0.0008; soybeans p = 0.0001), hedge ratios deteriorate with distance from delivery (p =. 0.0001), and geographic features carry statistically significant predictive power for basis dynamics (Diebold–Mariano p \u003c 0.0001). In Canada, crop centroids shifted 2.03◦ southward (p \u003c 0.0001), confirming that the mechanism operates regardless of\r\nmigration direction. 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