COLUMBUS, Ohio — More than half of the United States’ land is used for agriculture production.
And, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, agriculture is extremely sensitive to weather and climate.
From extreme droughts to excessive rainfall, unpredictable weather patterns affect farmers productivity.
“Farmers are at the forefront of experiencing weather. I’m a farmer myself, so I notice the weather. I notice things that are changing around me,” said Doug Jackson-Smith, farmer and professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University.
Jackson-Smith spends a lot of his time studying climate, tracking long term trends.
“The world’s getting more and more crazy in terms of the weather, so you see more extreme weather, more volatile, winters getting warmer or colder," he said. "We saw a lot of very wet planting seasons in the spring, and then last summer's drought, is the kind of thing you associate with becoming more frequent in the future."
The farmer, who doubles as a professor in Ohio State’s School of Environment Natural Resources, said these extreme climate changes make it harder for farmers to stay on schedule.
“For most farmers right now the biggest challenges have been getting in and doing things the way they’re used to doing them on the schedules they’re used to. When it’s wet for too long in the spring, you can’t get your crops in on time. You often have to shift to varieties that are better, shorter season maturity varieties,” said Jackson-Smith.
So what’s the answer?
Scott Metzger, the vice president of the American Soybean Association, said adaptability is key.
“You can no-till instead of working your ground, also cover crops are becoming more popular," Metzger said. "Those will get planted in the fall. If you plant them, they’re done after the crops are harvested."
Metzger said this helps with several things, including holding soil moisture in, a farming technique that involves planting seeds without disturbing the soil.
And Jackson-Smith is working on a project that could potentially help farmers.
“We’re bringing together 10 different groups of farmers around Ohio and Missouri, collaborating with them to think about some of the practices that they’ve tried or might be thinking about trying and deploying that scale on their farms and tracking that over four seasons,” Jackson-Smith said.
He said that this will allow farmers to find different climate protection methods that are economically profitable.
Jackson-Smith said another thing farmers need to be aware of are mild winters. That’s because when fewer pests get killed off it can expose crops to more diseases.
