Impact of Hurricanes on Agriculture: Evidence from the Caribbean

Large parts of the Caribbean depend heavily on agriculture for income, a sector particularly sensitive to hurricanes. This paper uses historical hurricane tracks, in conjunction with aggregated and disaggregated data, to evaluate econometrically the impact of hurricanes on agriculture in the Caribbean for the period 1961–2009. Overall, the results illustrate that hurricanes have had a statistically significant negative impact on agriculture—albeit in the relatively short term—with the smaller islands being more negatively affected. However, more important, the use of aggregated and disaggregated data shows that: (1) pooling disaggregated data across agricultural products may produce a more reasonably measured estimate of hurricane destruction than aggregated data levels and (2) different agricultural products are affected differently by hurricanes, and there is substantial product heterogeneity in resilience to hurricanes. More generally, the results suggest that increased diversification within the agriculture sector may increase resilience to hurricanes in the region.