How are Northeastern farmers surviving recent extreme weather?
UVM Extension Center for Sustainable Agriculture partnered with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub and produced three videos asking Northeast farmers just that. Each farmer discusses how they’re experiencing and adapting to climate change. They discuss how cropping strategies, water management, and soil protection practices have increased their resilience to climate impacts and helped them continue to farm successfully. Also, check out the related UVM blog post on the video series launch!
Upinngil Farm
On Upinngil Farm in Massachusetts they're growing strawberries and grapes and grazing livestock, using grass-based milk sales to provide income stability. High tunnels have provided both season extension and climate control. Farmer Clifford Hatch says, "We are working to manage the risks of this resource in the best possible way."
Intervale Community Farm
In Vermont, at Intervale Community Farm farmers are using green manure and cover crops, and seeding density to build soil fertility and increase resiliency. In their 27 years of operation, they've learned to adapt to periodic floods from the Winooski River by careful decisions about where their short-rotation and long-season crops are placed. Farmer Andy Jones says that, even in the flood plain, "irrigation is critical."
Edgewater Farm
Farmer, Pooh Sprague, of Edgewater Farm in New Hampshire has also come to rely on high tunnels and other strategies for protected growing of the farm's key crops. He notes the importance of practices that build the soil's health and resiliency. "Everything I do is to ameliorate the damage I do by tilling," he says.