Vermont farmers have a new resource to help them prepare for whatever a changing climate might throw at them. The University of Vermont Agricultural Extension recently hired a farming and climate change program coordinator. His job is to help them solve problems and answer questions by networking with other farmers and researchers, as well as conducting his own research.
Joshua Faulkner, the new hire, moved to Vermont from West Virginia, an apt location given that climate scientists say Vermont could have West Virginia’s climate in as little as 60 years.
“West Virginia agriculture and Vermont agriculture aren’t that dissimilar,” Faulkner said. “West Virginia is just full of small, diversified farms and I think that’s a great strategy when farmers are facing uncertain weather patterns.”
Vermont is likewise full of small, diversified farms.
Faulkner, who speaks with a Southern lilt, grew up on a small, grass-based beef farm, an experience that he thinks prepared him well for his work in Vermont. His family also raised sweet corn and other vegetables, pigs and chickens.
Faulkner went on to study agricultural hydrology at Virginia Tech, then Cornell University. He comes to Vermont from West Virginia University, where he worked with farmers through the agricultural extension to manage water on their farms in more environmentally sound ways.
Faulkner will be working on similar projects in Vermont, projects that will help farmers reduce flooding and its impacts and limit the runoff of nutrients and soil. These are major concerns as extreme weather events such as floods and droughts become more common.
Though he’s only been in Vermont for a couple of weeks, he already sees encouraging signs from farmers.
“I’ve seen instances across the state of farmers trying to plan for those extreme events in terms of cover cropping and the way they manage their field crops and what they plant in the floodplains, so I think they’re definitely on the right track,” he said.
Linda Berlin, director of the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture, says Faulkner was hired because the program had been ruminating on the need for a climate change focus since Irene.
“Lots of things are changing,” she said, “so farmers need to become increasingly informed about the changes that are occurring and that might occur and understand the practices they currently engage in that might be beneficial to them and what practices might be problematic.”
It’s not a top-down hierarchy, though. A quarter of Faulkner’s new job will be learning from the farmers and passing that learning on.
“Many farmers out there are on the leading edge and we learn a lot from them and we have the opportunity to move that information along to others,” Berlin said.
Another quarter of Faulkner’s job will be applied research. One project he’ll be working on is called Vermont Agricultural Resilience in a Changing Climate. This research effort, already underway under the direction of professor Ernesto Mendez, seeks the sweet spot where climate resilience, economic sustainability, and environmental quality intersect.
Faulkner said he is happy to be in Vermont.
“Vermont ag has a reputation of being very progressive, focusing on local food systems. It’s really exciting to work with producers who want to key in to those local markets,” Faulkner said.
