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Science of climate change points to crop variety

Science continues to project a negative impact from climate change on crops. An ecologist with the University of Illinois tells Brownfield markets don’t support the strategy of farmers’ increasing crop diversity, but it’s a good idea, “Not only having corn and soybean; thinking about winter annual crops; thinking about perennials; thinking about how to grow crops with different, functional characteristics so that they can deal with extreme weather in different ways.

Adam Davis, a USDA-Agricultural Research Service ecologist, says he and the great majority of the science community have high confidence in climate change models which are based on the amount of change in the global atmosphere over the past 40 years.  Davis says farmers need to be proactive because of that, “Growers have always been good risk managers. That’s just part of being a farmer. And, I think having some bet-hedging strategies in place would be a good idea to cope with the increasing volatility that we’re seeing.”

Meanwhile, new EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has expressed his doubts about the consensus on climate change and President Trump has issued an executive order to roll back Obama administration climate initiatives. No climate change questions were asked of Sonny Perdue, U.S. Ag Secretary nominee, at his confirmation hearing. Reports say Perdue has publicly been skeptical of man-made climate change and called it a “cause of the left” and the mainstream media.