Water access, varietal selection, and soil management are now underwriting inputs rather than operational details.
For a long period, agricultural underwriting treated climate as background variance to be smoothed across seasons. That treatment is no longer adequate in the regions where we look at land.
Three inputs have moved into the underwriting itself. Secure water access, including the legal basis for it. Varietal and rootstock selection appropriate to a warmer average rather than a historic one. And soil management practice, which determines resilience in the seasons that fall outside the average.
Each of these is capable of being assessed before acquisition, and each carries a cost of remediation that belongs in the price rather than in a later surprise.
Land underwritten this way is not defensive. It is simply valued against the conditions it will actually be farmed in.