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Climate Change Perceptions of NY State Farmers: The Role of Risk Perceptions and Adaptive Capacity

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Abstract

Climate change is expected to severely impact agricultural practices in many important food-producing regions, including the Northeast United States. Changing climate conditions, such as increases in the amount of rainfall, will require farmers to adapt. Yet, little is known with regard to farmers’ perceptions and understandings about climate change, especially in the industrialized country context. This paper aims at overcoming this research limitation, as well as determining the existing contextual, cognitive, and psychological barriers that can prevent adoption of sustainable practices of farmers in New York State. The study is framed within the adaptive capacity and risk perception literature, and is based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with farmers in 21 farms in two counties in Central New York. The results reveal diverging views about the long-term consequences of climate change. Results also reveal that past experience remains as the most important source of information that influences beliefs and perceptions about climate change, confirming previous research.

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Notes

  1. NY State legislators Farley, Tedisco, Amedore, Lopez and Senate Agriculture Chair Ritchie introduced in 2012 the bill “Family Farmers and Apple Growers Relief Act.”

  2. According to the Census for Agriculture conducted by USDA in 2012, Onondaga County had 681 farms and Cayuga County had 891 farms.

  3. http://www.cce.cornell.edu/Pages/Default.aspx

  4. The 21 interviews were part of a larger project that included interviews with other farmers who did not fit the sampling criteria for this study. This explains why some interviews in the results section are listed with higher numbers than 21 (e.g. Interview 39).

  5. The reasons that farmers declined to be interviewed were as follows: no interest (n = 9), farms being farmers’ markets or no longer in operation (n = 11), and call not returned (n = 13). Limitations of the sampling approach are reviewed in the discussion section.

  6. Not all participants recorded an answer to every question and not all responses are mutually exclusive.

  7. This farm has almost 200 acres and mostly makes hay for horses, and oats.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a grant from the Environmental Finance Center at Syracuse University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Journalism and Department of Communication, Michigan State University, 348 CAS Bldg. MSU Campus, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Bruno Takahashi

  2. Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Bruno Takahashi & Carol Terracina-Hartman

  3. Department of Environmental Studies, SUNY-ESF, 109 Marshall Hall, 1 Forestry Dr., Syracuse, NY, 13210-2787, USA

    Morey Burnham

  4. School of Journalism, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Carol Terracina-Hartman

  5. Central NY Regional Planning and Development Board, 100 Clinton Square, Suite 200, 126 North Salina St., Syracuse, NY, 13202, USA

    Amanda R Sopchak

  6. Department of Environmental Studies, SUNY-ESF, 219 Marshall Hall, 1 Forestry Dr., Syracuse, NY, 13210-2787, USA

    Theresa Selfa

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  1. Bruno Takahashi
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Correspondence to Bruno Takahashi.

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Takahashi, B., Burnham, M., Terracina-Hartman, C. et al. Climate Change Perceptions of NY State Farmers: The Role of Risk Perceptions and Adaptive Capacity. Environmental Management 58, 946–957 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0742-y

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