Rain Follows the Forest: Land Use Policy, Climate Change, and Adaptation

Human actions can alter the climate via land use. We analyze the 1930s Great Plains Shelterbelt, a large-scale forestation program across the US Midwest. The program increased precipitation and decreased temperatures for decades. We measure these changes in downwind counties where no trees were planted, isolating the effects of climate from those of afforestation and enabling us to study adaptation. Improved growing conditions allowed farmers to expand corn acreage and adopt water-intensive practices. In a period of farm consolidation, this altered the structure of the agricultural sector, contributing to the survival of small farms but less farm machine usage. The findings demonstrate the endogeneity of climate to land use change and the long-term impacts of tree planting on agricultural development.