Climate-Exacerbated Impacts May Drive Maladaptive Action in Agriculture

Abstract

Abstract In the eastern Corn Belt of the United States, climate change is projected to bring warmer and wetter conditions, with more variability in the seasonal timing of rainfall, creating a multitude of challenges for agricultural production. While there are multiple adaptations to reduce the vulnerability of production to a changing climate, these adaptations have varying implications for other ecosystem services such as soil health, carbon sequestration, and water quality. We explore how beliefs about and experiences with climate change might influence adaptations that vary in their provisioning of a variety of ecosystem services, and how these adaptations may vary by characteristics of the farm and farmer. Survey data were collected from 908 respondents from August through October 2019. We find only one proposed adaptation, additional tile drainage, is associated with self-reported prior negative experiences with climate change and concern about future impacts. The other proposed adaptations (i.e., cover crops, filter strips, additional fertilizer) are associated with farmer identity. The type of farmer who is likely to adapt is generally reminiscent of the type who engage in conservation practices: younger, more educated, with off-farm income and larger farms. Our results indicate that many proposed adaptations are not perceived as effective ways to mitigate specific climate-driven impacts. However, increasing tile drainage is perceived as such, and there may be a need to offset the potential negative impacts to water quality of this likely adaptation through the promotion of edge-of-field filtration practices. Significance Statement The purpose of this study is to better understand how beliefs about and experiences with climate change may influence adaptations that vary in their provisioning of a suite of ecosystem services. We find that those who are adapting directly to the most severe and frequent climate-exacerbated impact, heavy rain at the wrong time of year, are likely to adapt in ways that may benefit production (e.g., increasing drainage tile to ensure fields are not inundated by spring rains) but have negative feedback to society in terms of water quality. Most proposed adaptations are not perceived as effective means of increasing resilience to experienced impacts but rather as practices that are the norm among conservation-minded farmers with larger operations.