The Impact of Climate Change on North Country Farmers
Dan Kent in front of his tomato high tunnel. (Photo: Ryan Krugman)
“I am not optimistic. I think it will get harder and harder.” This was St. Lawrence County (NY) farmer Dan Kent’s response when asked how climate change will impact local farmers in the years to come.
Localized farming practices have both economic and environmental advantages for the North Country. But with warming temperatures and varying weather patterns, local farmers in the region will need to find ways to adapt in order to maintain their livelihoods and retain the benefits of local food systems.
The benefits of locally grown food
Kent is the founder and farmer of Kent Family Growers, one of 15 Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) certified farms in the North Country and one of two that offer Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs. CSAs help provide communities with fresh and local produce that is better for the environment and local economies.
Organic farming practices used by Kent Family Growers and Birdsfoot Farm, the North Country’s other organic farm offering a CSA, limit carbon emissions by decreasing transportation and abandoning chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Locally grown food is also healthier than food imported from conventional farms when we consider small increases in nutritional values as well as the lack of chemicals/preservatives.
Finally, according to Cornell Cooperative Extension, the multiplier effect, or the total increase in local income and profit that is created by the local food sector, is 1.48. This means, “for every dollar spent on the farmers market, other local businesses generate $0.48 of income” because a portion of the dollar remains in the local economy. Although this study was done regarding farmers’ markets, CSAs have similar influence as the food is produced locally and profit is generally spent in the area.
A study by Cambridge University Press found that ‘Food Hubs’, defined as any food distributed locally therefore including CSAs, had a multiplier effect of 1.75 on regional economies. Additionally, many CSAs, like Kent Family Growers and Birdsfoot Farm, distribute CSA boxes at farmers’ markets and sell their produce as vendors.
For 21 years Dan has seen his farm grow to support over 250 CSA members and his family. Birdsfoot has a smaller CSA of 35 members, but as an intentional community that practices subsistence farming, their farm has also supported a community of up to ten members at a time since 1972. Yet despite the positive impact of these small organic farms on their own livelihoods and their local communities, their fate is uncertain as climate change continues to worsen.
Heat, drought, and storms
The potential migration of Upstate New York’s climate. (Source: Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment [2007])
Climate change in the North Country will be defined by rising temperatures bringing intense and prolonged heat waves and shifting rainfall patterns that will increase the intensity and likelihood of droughts and heavy rains, according to the EPA and New York State Government.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) states that the average temperature across NY State has already risen 3°F since 1970, a rate of .6°F a decade. At this rate of warming, under the high emissions scenario, St. Lawrence County will have a climate similar to that of Western Virginia by 2069 and Northern South Carolina by 2090.
Dr. Curt Stager, a Professor of Biology and Natural Science at Paul Smith’s College and author of multiple books about climate change, tells me that already warming weather will have significant impacts in the years to come. He explains how warming weather will lead to more moisture in the atmosphere. Increased moisture, in combination with rising temperatures, will bring more intense storms with heavy rains when they do occur. Therefore, rainfall will be less frequent but more abundant during storms.
In comparison, droughts may become more common as rainfall becomes less consistent and heat waves intensify. In recent years, dry weather seems to have become more common with this May being the 35th driest May in the last 129 years. Significant droughts also occurred in 2016, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Stager is not certain if these droughts are the start of an emerging long-term pattern or if they are examples of short-term weather fluctuations caused by warming temperatures. However, he is sure temperature change will cause significant variability in rainfall intensity and consistency.
Flora, fauna, and local culture
Changing climate in the North Country will also result in changes in flora and fauna. Although these changes may not be seen as rapidly, tree species, growable crops, and native animals may all shift as their ecological niches, or where they are able to grow/live, move north. This will also lead to the introduction of invasive species that can negatively affect biodiversity in the area.
Despite these changing conditions, Stager argues that the biggest impact climate change will bring to the North Country is not physical but cultural. The Northeast is predicted to become a climate sanctuary for refugees from the scorching south or flooding coastal cities. This will lead to many changes from a potential housing crisis to a booming rural economy. New York State and local governments must begin to adapt to this scenario now to ensure current residents can prosper and future refugees will be able to live affordably.
Impact on small organic farmers
Of course, heat waves, droughts and heavy rains all have the ability to disrupt and alter the routines of agricultural production. Heat waves can lead to crop failure, droughts can stunt crop growth, and heavy rains can wash away newly planted seeds or flatten mature crops. This was echoed in my conversation with Dan Kent on a morning tractor ride while his team was busy transplanting cauliflower into the field.
Like most farmers, Kent has dealt with each of these circumstances in recent years but thankfully has avoided them this year, perhaps because he has already begun to adapt to climate related impacts on his farm.
View from my morning tractor ride at Kent Family Grower’s Farm. (Photo: Ryan Krugman)
Irrigation and drainage are the key infrastructural adaptation measures to weather that almost every farmer must take. Many small-scale farms can survive without these measures, but that seems to be changing as well. Kent quickly realized the importance of a solid drainage system by observing his crops and those of local dairy farmers fail as a result of wet fields.
In response, he installed a drainage system just a few years after starting his farm. The irrigation system would come just seven years ago in response to more consistent dry spells. “We used to have more years that were more wet than dry,” he says, “but now it’s the opposite.” This led Kent to add not one irrigation system, but two. This proved to be a beneficial investment as just this past May, during a prolonged drought, Kent Family Growers were compelled to irrigate their way through the month.
Like infrastructural additions, changing growing practices can make farms more resilient to climate change. Take cover cropping, for example. Cover cropping is the process of planting crops that cover the soil and are later introduced into the soil through tilling to enrich the soil. Settler farmers have been using this practice since the 1700s, but indigenous groups (such as the Iroquois with the planting of the “Three Sisters”) have used similar methods for much longer.
However, Kent has found an innovative way to use cover cropping to protect seeds from heavy rains. He explained that in the past heavy rains at just the right time have swept his carrot seeds out of the soil because they need to be planted so shallowly. Cover cropping and tilling the cover crop into soil after planting, however, creates a protective blanket that keeps the seeds in the ground. Changing and finding innovative practices such as these will be necessary for small farms that are especially vulnerable to climate change.
The cost of adaptation
Adding infrastructure and changing farming practices may not be enough to save small organic farmers from the threats of climate change. If droughts, heat waves, and heavy rains continue to worsen, adaptation measures may not be enough to prevent crop failures. A Cornell Field Corps study about the impacts of a drought in 2016 in New York shows that of 200 farms, 70 percent of field crop acreage had losses greater than 30 percent. Despite irrigation systems, the drought led to lost crops and therefore lost profits.
Sadly, lost profits are not the only cost climate change will present to farmers. Between building additional irrigation and drainage systems, maintaining infrastructure, and increasing labor to employ more resilient practices, adapting to climate change is expensive. “The farms that will be able to adapt and afford climate change are large conventional farms with the money to do so,” acknowledged Kent. This leaves small organic farms with an uncertain future defined by increasing production costs and unstable profits.
Benefits of a longer growing season
In the face of all the negative conditions climate change will bring to small organic farmers in the North Country, there is a big silver lining: farming in the North Country may no longer be limited by its short growing season. My conversation with Dulli Tengler of Birdsfoot Farm focused on this somewhat positive change warming weather may bring. “I have a longer growing season,” she told me while cooking a vegetable stew with her freshly picked greens and potatoes. “I would say I can grow longer into the fall. We do get a frost in late September but sometimes not another one until mid-October.”
This means if late season greens, like lettuce, herbs and spinach, are well protected from the initial frost, Tengler can sell greens into the first few weeks of October. She also noted that “the spring is earlier, too, but we still get frosts in late May.” Although the season is slowly growing, it is still risky to plant spring crops too early due to these late frosts. This year Tengler remained unimpacted by a late June frost, but Kent sadly lost half of his strawberries. Nonetheless, both agree that they have gained a few days at the beginning and end of the season.
They also agree on another big advantageous change: the possibility of growing new fruits and vegetables whose ranges will grow north as temperatures rise. The current ecological niches of the range of crops will change in location and area as temperatures warm. Most common vegetables can be grown in the North Country, from greens to peppers, but the number of fruits grown here is restricted to apples, melons, and berries. Citrus fruits must be imported from the south as they require warm weather and prolonged direct sunlight.
Areas as close as Syracuse are able to grow fruits that farms in the North Country have never been capable of in the past. However, the North Country may be reaching a stage of warming where growing cold-tolerant citrus trees is possible. Just this year, Birdsfoot Farm planted a peach tree! Tengler isn’t sure how the tree will do in Canton, but they plan to continue experimenting with new fruits in the coming years.
A longer growing season and new produce may help small farms in the North Country support a growing population. When talking about the potential influx of climate refugees in the area, Tengler sounded more than open to the change. “More people means more customers,” she said. Hopefully, support from incoming residents will be just what small farms need to adapt to the economic challenges climate change is presenting while continuing to provide locally grown produce through CSA and farmers’ markets.
Dulli Tengler showing me her tomatoes. (Photo: Ryan Krugman)
An uncertain forecast
As always with climate change, change seems to be the one thing that is certain. Whether the change that comes is social or physical, mostly positive or mostly negative, small organic farmers will need to adapt. However, adaptation measures can be expensive, and they will need to continue to compete with large conventional farms that have dominated the industry for decades. This puts small farms at risk of succumbing to these costs or being bought out by conventional farming operations as has been the trend since the mid 1900s. The impact of losing small farms, and the benefits they bring to the economy, community, and our plates, is concerning but not inevitable.
The passion small organic farmers like Dan and Dulli have for their craft is a form of resistance and hope within itself. After a delicious dinner with Dulli and the Birdsfoot community, she left me with the familiar quote, “If I knew the world was ending tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree today.” Although this quote seems to take on many meanings, for Dulli it seemed to mean that nothing will ever make her stop farming and doing what she loves. But as temperatures warm and weather patterns change Dulli may need to change her quote to be about peaches rather than apples.
