Regional Vegetable Farms Make Changes for AN UNCERTAIN CLIMATE

What will Wisconsin’s climate look like in 20 or 30 years? Climate change is uncertain by definition, but one thing that is certain is that regional farms will continue to feed our communities.

Climate change is no longer an abstract concept; even nonfarmers are noticing changes in our local climate. Dry weather in July, snow before Thanksgiving, or having to bundle up for Halloween used to be the norm. Now our summers have 15-20% more precipitation, and fall weather is 2-5°F warmer than it was 60 years ago. When your livelihood depends on the weather, as it does for our region’s vibrant vegetable farms, the stakes are high.

Wisconsin is Getting Warmer and Wetter

Although the future of climate change is still unpredictable (especially in the short-term), there is some consensus emerging among climatologists. In another 60 years the weather in southern Wisconsin is predicted to be closer to the current weather of southern Indiana or northeastern Kansas: hotter and wetter. We’re already in the warmest period modern civilization has faced. The global average temperature has risen by nearly 2°F in the last 120 years, and the seven hottest years on record occurred in the last decade.

5-20% more precipitation in the summer

In the Midwest, one of the key influences on extreme weather events is the jet stream, a powerful air current that normally keeps cold Arctic air separate from warmer southern air. As the differences in temperature between the Arctic and the equator grow smaller, the jet stream weakens, allowing it to swing up and down more significantly over the northern U.S. So, while winters are generally becoming warmer, we’re also seeing more polar vortexes that bring bitter cold. Another prominent effect can be seen with extreme rainfall events, increasingly common as the air warms and is able to hold more moisture.

“We're already seeing more frequent extreme weather events, including heavy rainfalls that leave fields flooded and either directly damage crops or keep farmers out of fields at critical times for field preparation, planting or harvest,” said Rue Genger, the UW-Madison scientist behind the Climate Resilient Organic Vegetable Production collaborative. One of the group’s members, Rufus Haucke of Keewaydin Farms in Viola, reiterated the issue: “The increased frequency of hail, or heavy rain and high winds has kept me up at night.”

Regional Producers Adapt to Our New Climate Reality

Our area has an incredible richness of vegetable farms, but extreme weather events are challenging them to adapt. Fortunately, as Dr.

Genger said, “Farmers are already innovating in response to climate change.” Some growers, like Haucke, are adapting their production methods by reducing tillage.

sion to shut down their well-loved vegetable CSA and fully transition to a perennial fruit farm, mainly producing high-quality, certified organic apples. “The ground in the fruit plantings is protected by mulch and sod,” Chris said, “which makes it much less susceptible to soil erosion during the intense rain events which are expected to become more frequent.”

Typically, vegetable production is very tillage intensive, which can reduce soil quality and lead to excessive erosion, nutrient loss and general degradation of the soil. Haucke has transitioned to a notill method of production to lower the risk of erosion, but noted that he actually prefers the smaller scale of this method despite the challenges of figuring out a new production system. “I have lots of experiments to run and ways I want to evolve my own system, but I just love the style,” he said.

Other farms have made the difficult decision to shift away from annual vegetable production entirely. At Two Onion Farm in Belmont, Chris McGuire and his wife Juli made the difficult deci-

Changing Climates, Changing Production, Changing Markets

Part of the challenge of changing production systems is that it changes the markets that growers can access. Two Onion Farm primarily marketed their vegetables through a CSA. Now, although they sell some of their apples directly to customers through a fruit CSA, they have had to focus on wholesale markets. Critically, they’ve had to find markets for the blemished fruit—which was not as important while farming vegetables—including “selling some of the fruit to processors and having some fruit processed into applesauce and apple butter which we sell ourselves.”

At Keewaydin Farms, scaling down to enable a reducedtillage production system has also meant giving up some markets entirely. “I had a number of good customers in the Twin Cities,” Haucke recalled, “but I dropped that market completely so I lost all the customers I had. Failure can be a tough pill to swallow but once I came out of it I was at a scale that was enjoyable.”

Haucke also pointed out that climate change is a double-edged sword for Wisconsin producers. “We are at a bit of a disadvantage in Wisconsin when it comes to the length of our growing season, so as things warm there is perhaps a bit of an advantage to being able to get crops going outside sooner and have crops later in the season. I feel as if we have gained about a month of growing weather since I first started 18 years ago.” With just 3 to 4 months without frost for most Wisconsin growers, adding a month of adequate growing weather is huge.

Yet while the warmer weather might seem to be a boon for some farmers, it can be a headache for others. Dr. Genger added, “Higher summer temperatures are a risk both to crops and to farm workers. But winters are warming fastest, and that means more insect pests surviving through the winter and impacting crops.”

As McGuire notes, “Any changes to climate are especially worrisome when we are invested in a perennial, long-term crop…it's difficult to adapt quickly to changing climate with changes in varieties, crop mix or growing methods.” What might be the right move for climate resilience now could present challenges later.

No Matter What the Future Brings, Resilience is Key

No matter what tactics farmers are using to deal with changing climates, there is consensus that decentralizing and diversifying food production is key to building resilience. As Dr. Genger said, “Rebuilding local and regional infrastructure is key. We need to support farmers in diversifying food production including perennial production systems. But we also need to invest in food storage, processing and distribution at community scales. There's so much potential to revitalize local economies at the same time as increasing the resilience of our food system.”

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In southern Wisconsin we’re lucky to have dedicated researchers and innovative growers tackling the problem head-on. Next time you choose your CSA or find a moment to chat with a favorite farmer at a market, consider asking them how they are feeling about and reacting to climate change. While it might be an abstract question for many of us, figuring out how to adapt to climate change is a poignant and pressing issue for farmers. Adapting for a resilient food system will be up to us as consumers as well as the farmers themselves. It’s important to vote with our dollar and support farmers that are using climate-smart approaches. Supporting those farms during the good seasons means that when times are tough we can still count on local food.

“I am an optimistic person even when it comes to climate change,” Haucke told me. While reducing tillage is an excellent adaptation strategy, making those farms more resilient when flooding occurs, it is also a mitigation strategy— helping sequester more carbon in the soil. Agriculture has been a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but as producers seek more sustainable methods it can also be a part of the solution. “I personally spend more time thinking about ways to work within the reality of this changing planet. It seems to me if all we do is think of doom and gloom then we become paralyzed with emotion and lose hope,” Haucke said. “Better to face the situation and come up with solutions… I feel like it's our free pass to shake off past agricultural practices in favor of something new and hopefully better.”