Abstract
A variety of factors shape farmers' views as they face the rising effects of climate change and consider a range of adaptation strategies to build the resilience of their farming systems. We examine a set of related questions to explore farmers' perspectives on risks and potential shifts to their operations: (1) Relative to other environmental factors, how salient of a challenge is climate change and climate-related impacts to farmers? (2) Do farmers intend to adapt to climate impacts generally?, and (3) What factors shape their use of a specific and underexplored adaptive response—farm product diversification? The data come from a survey of 179 operators within a 30-county region of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The region spans various rural-urban gradients. Respondents generally represent smaller operations [median of 80 acres (32 hectares)]. Because our selection methods aimed to over-sample from food-producing farms, 60% of respondents produced some type of food or value-added product, and 40% produced only commodity feedstocks and biofuels. Although the group as a whole indicated only “somewhat” of a concern about changing weather patterns, and half did not anticipate adapting their farming practices to climate change, farmers' responses to a write-in question denoted regional climate effects as challenges to their farms. Analysis of subgroups among the respondents, according to their views of climate change, adaptation, and further diversifying their agricultural products, distinguished farmers' family considerations, and gender. Methods to elicit subgroups included correlation, regression, cluster analysis, and an examination of the many respondents (29%) who indicated uncertainty about adapting practices. Women, who participated in 29% of responses, indicated more concern with changing weather patterns and more openness to adapting farming practices compared to men. Farmers with the most family relationships to consider, and those with the greatest aspirations to employ descendants, were the most receptive to adapting their farming practices. This was the case even when respondents' concern over climate change was low. Results point to the importance of family relationships as a factor in farmers' openness to implementing adaptive and potentially mitigative actions.
Highlights
Across the United States, climate change—in the form of higher average temperatures and increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events—is already and will continue to present grave challenges to agricultural production and the farm families who operate within agricultural systems (IPCC, 2019)
We consider if and how farmers may respond to climate change through adaptation, asking the related questions of: (2) Do farmers intend to adapt to climate impacts generally?, and (3) What factors shape their use of a specific and relatively underexplored adaptive response—farm product diversification? Because of the links between diversification and family, and the benefits of diversification related to climate adaptation, food security, and rural resilience, we focus on how farmers’ diversification perspectives and practices correspond with their gender and family patterns and their views of climate change adaptation
To explore respondents’ perspectives on implementing climateadaptive agricultural practices in general, we examined their responses to one item: “Do you anticipate changing your farming practices in response to changing weather patterns?” This item produced three subgroups—those who did not expect to adapt practices, those who did, and those who didn’t know if they would change their farming practices
Summary
Across the United States, climate change—in the form of higher average temperatures and increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events—is already and will continue to present grave challenges to agricultural production and the farm families who operate within agricultural systems (IPCC, 2019). The climate change impacts that the US Midwest region faces are direct, as the weather becomes warmer and wetter, and indirect, through shifting habitat ranges (Winkler et al, 2014; Janowiak et al, 2016). Indirect impacts involve habitats becoming more hospitable to a wider range of diseases and pests that may depress agricultural productivity In response to these risks, farmers can pursue adaptation strategies that include both practices and operational-level shifts that reduce vulnerability to climate change (Smit and Skinner, 2002; Howden et al, 2007). Given the important role farmers play in driving adaptation of agricultural systems (Ostrom, 2014; Jurt et al, 2015), researchers are increasingly focusing on US farmers’ adaptation decision making, revealing that a variety of factors shape farmers’ use of adaptation strategies and views of climate change risks (Arbuckle et al, 2013a; Schattman et al, 2016; Roesch-McNally et al, 2018; Houser and Stuart, 2019; Fletcher et al, 2020; Yoder et al, 2021)
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