Climate Change Risk and Adaptation: Perspectives of Midwestern Agriculturalists

As the climate changes, farmers must cope with impacts, such as more frequent extreme weather events and less reliable conditions, which will create challenges for crop production. When making decisions, U.S. farmers typically rely on advisors with specialized expertise for guidance. Little research has been done on agricultural advisors' views on climate change, and how this affects advice they give to farmers. This talk will describe results from two 2012 surveys of 4,778 farmers across the 11 Corn Belt states and 2,087 Midwestern agricultural advisors in Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska. Advisors surveyed included Certified Crop Advisors, Extension agents, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Employees, Ag bankers and more. The following research questions will be the focus of this talk: 1) What are Midwestern farmers and corn advisors' perceptions of climate change risk? 2) How much importance do they place on agricultural adaptation to climate change? How much adaptation are farmers already engaged in? and 3) Do farmers' and advisors' climate change beliefs and risk perceptions influence their attitudes toward agricultural adaptation? Overall, 66% of farmers and 75% of Midwestern advisors believe that climate change is occurring, but disagree on the causes of climate change. Farmers' and advisors' perceived risk from climate change is low, while concern with specific impacts (droughts, erosion etc.) is higher, and both were related to climate change beliefs. Most farmers and advisors agreed that it is important for farmers to change practices to cope with increasing climate variability and remain successful in the long term. However, opinions varied significantly based on climate change beliefs—with those believing climate change is at least partly human caused most likely to agree that adaptation is important. Overall, Midwestern farmers are engaged in relatively low levels of risk management behaviors that could help them be more resilient to climate change. Implications of survey results for outreach and dissemination of climate change adaptation information will be discussed.