U.S. Inland Pacific Northwest Wheat Farmers’ Perceived Risks: Motivating Intentions to Adapt to Climate Change?

Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally

doi:10.3390/environments5040049

Abstract

The Regional Approaches to Climate Change for the Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCH PNA) project was a USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) funded effort aimed at taking a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to understanding the implications of climate change on wheat and other cereal crop production in the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW). As part of this project, two comprehensive surveys of wheat producers were conducted in 2012/13 and 2015/16, which included questions concerning production practices, risk perception, and attitudes towards climate change adaptation and mitigation. This paper explores farmers’ anticipated adaptive responses to climate change across five different adaptation strategies, including, cropping system, crop rotation, tillage practices, soil conservation practices, and crop insurance. This research examines whether farmers anticipate making little to no change or moderate to big changes to their production system in response to climate change and whether perceived economic and environmental risks motivate farmers’ intentions to adapt to climate change. I found that a small percentage (18–28%) of respondents intend on taking moderate to big action in response to predicted climate change, across both surveys and all five adaptation strategies. Further, high levels of perceived economic and environmental risks, associated with climate change and positive attitudes towards adaptation, are motivating intentions to adapt.

Highlights

Dryland cereal production in the inland Pacific Northwest takes place in the semiarid portion of Central Washington and the Columbia Plateau in Northeast Oregon and Northern Idaho [1].This region produces around 17% of the national wheat harvest [2], which is primarily produced for a bulk commodity export market with over 90% of grains sold to Asia [3]
The main focus of this study is to explore what is driving adaptation intentions across five adaptive strategies that inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) farmers may implement in response to climate change
Of particular interest is the role of environmental and economic risks and their influence on adaptation intentions. The percentage of those indicating that environmental risks associated with climate change present a moderate to high risk to their operation increased from 41%

Summary

Introduction

Dryland cereal production in the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) takes place in the semiarid portion of Central Washington and the Columbia Plateau in Northeast Oregon and Northern Idaho [1]. This region produces around 17% of the national wheat harvest [2], which is primarily produced for a bulk commodity export market with over 90% of grains sold to Asia [3]. Climate change is expected to impact dryland cereal production in the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) with concomitant ecological, agronomic, and economic impacts. Beck suggests that risk originates from human decision making and is a part of society [21]. Climate change represents a temporally, and often times, spatially distant event rather than something that will have local impacts in the near-term

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Conclusion