Identifying Who Engages in Sustainable Adaptation in Large-Scale Commodity Agriculture
Abstract Global climate change is projected to negatively impact agriculture through increasingly severe weather. In the eastern Corn Belt of the United States, it is projected to get warmer and wetter overall, with more variability in the seasonal timing of rainfall. This will make it more difficult to get into the fields in the spring and fall due to wet conditions, while higher overall temperatures and decreased rainfall in the summer may limit crop growth. While there are multiple adaptations to reduce the vulnerability of agricultural production to a changing climate, these adaptations have varying implications for soil health, carbon sequestration and water quality. We explore the drivers of adaptations that vary in their provisioning of a variety of ecosystem services. We find that adaptation is driven in large part by self-reported past negative experiences with climate change that drive up concern about future climate change. Adaptation is also more likely among farmers that are younger, more educated, and more conservation minded, and who operate farms that are larger, more extensively insured, and will be passed on to a family member. However, increasing tile drainage will be the most common strategy in response to increased and more variable rainfall, indicating potential negative impacts for water quality. Practices that promote soil health and sequestration will be less common, and more driven by the identity of farmers as conservationists than by the weather. There will be a need to offset the potential negative impacts of increasing drainage through the promotion of edge-of-field filtration practices.