With widespread impacts on the ecology, economy, and community in the Adirondacks, climate change is a hot topic featured weekly in news sources all over New York. In the Adirondacks, The media frequently focuses on climate change impacts on winter tourism such as skiing and snowmobiling. However, much less attention has been given to another important business in the Adirondacks. Climate change has had and will have a profound impact on Adirondack agriculture.
Farmers are very well in tune with the landscape. They have to be, their yield is directly linked to their ability to anticipate weather and season changes. In turn, farmers have been aware for a while of the rapidly shifting climate. Increased precipitation events, higher temperatures, and heat stress days have already begun to affect crop yields in many places in the Adirondacks. Dairy products, apples, potatoes and cabbage, products highly favored by Adirondack farmers, will be increasingly difficult to grow as the temperature increases.
The earth’s climate has never been static, however, the rate of climate change farmers are facing today is unknown to previous generations. The increased occurrence of extreme weather in the last few decades creates challenges for agriculture. Flooding, drought and heat stress, in particular, have been problematic for farmers in the Adirondacks. Flooding causes planting delay, root damage, soil loss from erosion and contamination of water supplies for crops. Drought diminishes the quality of produce and decreases the yields of rain-fed crops. Increasing heat puts pressure on grain crops. Increasing night and daytime temperatures influence plant development and in turn, reduce crop yield.
Farmers are well aware of the potentially catastrophic damage climate change will have on their business. And steps have already been taken to begin the process of adaptation. Unlike the business of winter sports tourism, which can supplement higher temperatures with machinery, farmers have to think ahead. In 2015, a $1.4 million dollar grant program launched by Governor Cuomo was instated to “mitigate the environmental impact of agriculture-related activities and increase the resiliency of farms throughout New York State in the face of a changing climate” (New york State Governance). The grant has helped fund projects to develop more sustainable practices on farms often dealing with waste storage, floodplain systems, and soil health. In addition, The Institute for Climate Change and Agriculture at Cornell University has set up a website to help facilitate farm adaptation. Through extensive research, the institute provides specific information to farms about what they can do to adapt. These online decision support tools, such as the growing degree-day tool, which shows the shifted growing day and how it compares to years in the past and the future, will help farmers make decisions with long-term factors in mind.
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I am so glad you write your blog post on this topic! During class we really only talked about how the weather change would affect businesses that rely on snow, but we never touched on farmers and I was wondering how this would affect them. We did slightly talk about the affect of maple season but didn't go into much detail. It's crazy to think about how much farmers have to adapt to the environment around them. Farmers not only have a business to run but people also rely on their food to live. I am glad that some sort of action is being taken with the grant.
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