Helping Farmers Adapt

Interesting paper called "Farmer Climate Risk Management: Insights into climate change adaptation capacity," by Jennifer Phillips, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, Bard College; David Krantz, Center for Research in Environmental Decisions, Columbia University; Bradfield Lyon, International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, Columbia University.

The abstract states: "Consensus is emerging that climate change is likely to result in an increase in weather extremes. Farmers, who are highly sensitive to climate extremes, present an opportunity to investigate decision making related to managing climate risk, providing insights into managing uncertainty associated with future climate change. Through surveys, interviews, and focus groups with farmers in Eastern New York State, we are studying climate risk management with two aims: first, to “map” mental models of frequency distributions of important extreme events of Northeast farmers and the relationship to adaptive strategies, and second, to assess farming system resilience to climate extremes. Products of this work will include improved decision support materials in the context of climate risk associated with climate extremes."