Author: Jason Cervenec

How can farmers adapt to changing climate conditions while still supporting agricultural production and protecting critical ecosystem services?

Join us for an insightful webinar, Understanding Agroecosystem Tradeoffs in a Changing Climate, on Monday, October 14 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. EST via Zoom. Learn about the results of a multi-year integrated modeling effort led by Ohio State experts in partnership with a stakeholder advisory team focused on the Eastern Corn Belt Region, aimed at addressing this critical question. The webinar is free with a hosted Q&A session to consider how to translate this work into policies and programs. Registration is required at: https://go.osu.edu/AgWebinar

The webinar is presented by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics and the School of Environment and Natural Resources in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and the Byrd Polar Climate and Research Center at The Ohio State University.

PDF flier for printing and sharing the event.

Listen to the podcast from Our Ohio Weekly.

Our entire collection of videos, presentation slides, and handouts is up-to-date. Learn more about the project and see the team’s current progress, including a recent presentation to NC3 and infographics summarizing findings

Climate change in the eastern Corn Belt Region (ECBR) is projected to bring higher temperatures, more variable and extreme levels of precipitation, and longer growing seasons. While these possibilities imply opportunity for increased production in the ECBR, managing change sustainably will be increasingly challenging. We propose research that will elevate the capacity of decision makers in the ECBR to adapt to a variable climate.

Our approach is to identify how changing seasonal and extreme precipitation patterns induce changes in land use and management patterns driven by heterogeneous farmer adaptations. To assess multiple goals related to agricultural production, conservation, and societal well-being, we will build an integrated set of models of the climate system, regional economy, and agroecological outcomes and use this to evaluate policies and programs by projecting their impacts on the sustainability and resilience of this regional agroecosystem under varying futures. A participatory modeling approach is used throughout the project to engage stakeholders in developing the model scenarios and identifying relevant adaptations and policies.

The expected key outcomes include: (i) innovations in coupling downscaled climate projections with models of heterogeneous farmer behavior, regional economics, and land use/management patterns; (ii) increased awareness of how climate has changed over the last century in the ECBR; (iii) increased understanding of future climate and likely agroecosystem responses in the ECBR; and (iv) improved stakeholder confidence in the ability to mitigate climate-induced risks through more informed land use and management.