Before revision:  However, most of these stakeholders are unwilling to pay for the price of weather derivatives (WD) because of  product-design and geographical basis risks in the pricing models of WD. Using machine learning ensemble technique for crop yield forecasting and feature importance, the major major weather variable (average temperature) that affects crop yields are empirically determined. This variable (average temperature) is used as the underlying index for WD to eliminate product-design basis risks. A model with time-varying speed of mean reversion, seasonal mean,  local volatility that depends on the average temperature and time for the contract period is proposed.
After revision:  However, most of these stakeholders are unwilling to pay for the price of weather derivatives (WD) because of product-design and geographical basis risks in the pricing models of WD. Using machine learning ensemble technique was used to determine the relationship between maize yield and weather variables. The results revealed that the most significant weather variable that affected the yield of maize was average temperature. A mean-reverting model with a time-varying speed of mean reversion, seasonal mean, local volatility that depends on the average temperature and time for the contract period is proposed.