CCE shares strategies for building a resilient future in ag
The agricultural sector dealing with unprecedented challenges in the face of climate change. To shed light on the efforts being made to address these issues, Jenna Walczak, Ag Climate Resiliency Specialist for CCE’s Harvest New York team joined Cornell Cooperative Extension’s (CCE) ‘Extension Out Loud’ podcast for a conversation about helping farmers adapt to the changing climate and build resilience in their agricultural practices. “Adaptation is the actions that we are taking in response to a changing climate. On farms in New York State, that might mean things like improving water management or soil health to be able to better withstand drought or flooding.” In this episode, Walczak discusses climate vulnerabilities, strategies for adaptation, and the future landscape of farming in New York. While climate-related challenges affect the entire state, their intensity varies across regions. CCE’s work involves tailoring adaptation strategies to cater to the specific needs of each region, ensuring that farmers receive personalized support. Walczak underscores the significance of re-establishing connections within agricultural communities and fostering the exchange of knowledge and experiences among farmers. By building stronger social networks, farmers can collectively address climate challenges and enhance their resilience. “One thing that is important in the agricultural community in terms of building resilience is really developing and continuing to grow social networks.” CCE plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between university research and agricultural stakeholders. Specialists like Walczak serve as conduits for translating scientific knowledge into practical applications on farms. Events like the upcoming climate symposium facilitate collaboration among extension agents, researchers, and farmers, enabling them to share ideas and collectively strive toward a more resilient future for agriculture. Links: Responding to Climate Change in New York State (ClimAID)Report CCE Ag In-service Climate Symposium (November 9, 2023) Harvest NY (website) EpisodeTranscript: PAUL: Welcome to another episode of Extension Out Loud, a podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension. I'm your host Paul Treadwell. For this episode, I sat down with Jenna Walczak:, the Ag climate resiliency specialist from Cornell Cooperative Extensions Harvest New York team. Our conversation focuses on the ever-evolving climate challenges confronting the agricultural sector in New York. We also discussed the work of Cornell Cooperative Extension in facilitating innovation and collaboration to support adaptation, and climate resiliency and agricultural practices. JENNA: My name is Jenna, and I am an Ag Climate Resiliency Specialist on the Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest New York Team. PAUL: Welcome, Jenna. It's nice to meet you here. When we're looking at New York State, what are the main climate vulnerabilities farmers are currently facing? JENNA: So there are a number of vulnerabilities or what are referred to as climate risks that are outlined in a 2014 report that's often called the ClimAID Report, and some of these include things like temperature, extreme heat, and more frequent and longer heatwaves are definitely of concern and something we already been seeing. Another risk is related to precipitation. It's projected that in the coming decades we might be seeing more precipitation over the course of one year but that this precipitation will likely be falling in more extreme rainfall events where we're getting more than 1 or 2 inches in a 24-hour period. Some other kind of risks or roller abilities are related to increased instances of diseases and things like that, so possibly more generations of an agricultural pest in one season. PAUL: Given the fact that New York State is a large and geographically diverse State, do the climate vulnerabilities vary by region of the state, or is it pretty consistent across New York State? JENNA: I think it's likely fair to say that every region will be seeing changes as a result of climate change but that the extent of those kind of risks or vulnerabilities may be different slightly from one region to another in the state. But there are certain risks, things like sea level rise, that will be seen in the Hudson Valley or around New York City that won't be a problem in Central New York. PAUL: At the outset of our conversation, can you just talk a little bit about the difference between climate and weather? JENNA: Weather is often thought of as something that we are seeing from day to day in the shorter term sense while climate is the patterns that are happening over longer periods of time. PAUL: Playing this out theoretically, we could-- for the climate, we could be experiencing a wetter climate, but we could have weather events that are droughts? JENNA: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think an important piece related to that is with those climate projections that I was mentioning earlier that are outlined in the 2014 ClimAID Report is that along with that description of possible wetter years, more precipitation in one year, there's also likelihood or increased chance of short-term drought in the later summer. PAUL: In your role, you talk a lot about climate adaptation. Can you describe for us what climate adaptation means? What is it? What does it look like in practice? JENNA: Adaptation is the actions that we are taking in response to a changing climate, whether it is seeing more extreme precipitation or short-term drought or extreme heat. It's the actions that we're taking across the state and across sectors of the economy or particularly in agriculture to meet those challenges. So on farms in New York State, that might mean things like improving water management or soil health in order to be able to better withstand drought or flooding. For our perennial cropping and trees, cropping systems, that might mean things like hail netting to try to avert the worst impacts of those events. PAUL: How do you get the word out, and how do people begin to understand the challenges they're faces and then-- they're facing and then change their practices? Is there a particular method you have, or is there a better way to approach this work? JENNA: Yeah I think what I'll say from my experience in my role in this position for about a year and a half now is I've been working to-- working with fellow Extension agents and technical service providers and especially farmers and others working in the natural resource field across New York State to build a common knowledge and a common understanding of some of the things that we've been talking about today, what the impacts of climate change will look like in New York State, many of which we're already seeing, as well as what the practical and the adaptation actions and climate mitigation actions that farmers can take as well as citizens and community members. PAUL: So we know that farming is, at best, a dodgy business. It has a lot of risks and variabilities, whether it's crops or pests or livestock, financial issues. You throw the variable weather that we're experiencing into that. What are some of the fundamental things or fundamental practices that can be done to make a farm more resilient or more adaptable? JENNA: In terms of resilience and adaptation, there are a lot of practices related to improving soil health and generally on-farm, other practices related to things like on-farm energy efficiency. Or as I mentioned earlier, water management can also take a number of forms on-farm, yeah, and some of the practices do vary based on the type of cropping system going on at an individual farm. PAUL: You mentioned energy efficiency, and one thing this-- this is to the side of our main conversation, but one of the things that we're starting to see is the transition of some traditional agricultural land into solar farms. Can you talk a little bit about the trade-offs or the costs and benefits of taking some land and setting it aside for solar production? JENNA: New York State has pretty ambitious goals in terms of renewable energy production, and part of that is increasing the amount of solar energy. So there have been a lot of conversations going on about how to best locate solar panels and taking into account the fact that we have certain areas of New York State that are prime agricultural land or prime agricultural soils. So there are now a lot of people doing work on the best use or siting of our land, which is really great and really important work. But there's also a lot of exciting projects going on about co-locating solar agriculture through things like agrivoltaics. Solar grazing is something that is increasing in interest and awareness among farmers in Extension, and then there's also ideas about growing tree crops or perennial crops or other vegetable and agricultural crops under solar panels and a lot of really exciting work going on about that. PAUL: I just have to ask because it sounds so cool. Solar grazing-- is it as simple as having your goats or your cows out grazing in fields with elevated solar panels, or is it something else? JENNA: Oftentimes it's a sheep grazing under solar panels in New York State, and yeah, I've heard a little bit about different organizations working on training programs. There are specific challenges that I think one would face grazing animal [? grazing ?] area and solar panels related to maintenance and rotational grazing, grazing time, and things like that. And exciting to see the work being done there. PAUL: Yeah, and it just sounds so cool. But anyways, if we're looking at being climate-resilient or these adaptation practices, what support is available to help farmers or producers who are building resiliency and adaptation into their processes and practices? JENNA: For that education piece, there are county and regional team Extensio
