Enhancing Vermont Farmers’ Resilience to Extreme Precipitation through Farmer-to-Farmer Learning, Adaptation Planning & Financial Analysis

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: decision support system, farmer to farmer
• Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns, risk management
• Sustainable Communities: social networks

Project Focus

Through one-on-one interviews, survey analysis, and reports from farmers participating in NOFA-VT programming, farmers have shared an urgent need for education, technical assistance, and funding to strengthen their economic and ecological resilience in the face of increasingly extreme weather. Farms located along river corridors, in floodplains, and/or with steep slopes are at particular risk economically and ecologically from heavy precipitation. This project will provide farmer to farmer learning, technical assistance, and resources to farms that have experienced these types of disasters and/or that are at risk of future flooding and erosion.

Vermont farms vulnerable to the impacts of extreme water events are increasingly on the edge of viability, with more regular emergencies and little meaningful financial support available for recovery. Supporting farms to proactively plan for risk mitigation will build resilience in their land and business management, and is critical to ensuring farms can stay in business. These efforts will support farmers to increase their ecological resilience, including improving soil health and water quality, while simultaneously improving their financial and social resilience.

Solution & Approach

We will facilitate farmer-to-farmer learning and provide in-depth technical assistance and incentive funding for farms to increase their whole farm resilience in time periods with above-average and extreme precipitation. Small peer groups (pods) will be formed and composed of farms that have an affinity (e.g. production type and scale, geography, risk factors, etc.) and the process will encourage peer support as they collectively develop adaptation action plans for their respective farms. These action plans will be grounded in the collective knowledge and experiences of the farmers, with the service providers bringing known best practices and data-driven research to bear. Twice during the project we will host a gathering to bring all participating farmers together, widening the circle of knowledge sharing and connection in this farmer community.

Farmer learning and success will also be supported by one-one assistance and funding. Technical assistance for practice implementation along with business and financial planning will be available to all participating farms. We will develop and implement a method for measuring the costs (financial, environmental, and social) of not implementing risk mitigation strategies; this information will aid in farmers' decision-making as they prioritize the implementation of strategies identified in their adaptation action plans. Farms that complete an adaptation action plan will be eligible for a $3,000 incentive payment to support implementation of the action plan, an approach which reduces an identified barrier to adaptation.

1. As we face unprecedented challenges to the viability of farms in the Northeast, what are effective strategies to increase farmers' environmental, economic, and social resilience?
2. This project will focus on the community of Vermont farmers that are located in a floodplain and/or river corridor or have sloped land, many of whom recently suffered significant losses and who were able to respond and recover. However, these losses have reduced their ability to invest in adaptation strategies that would proactively manage the impact of future weather events on their farms. These are the farmers whose stress levels may impede their strategic thinking, who may feel isolated from others who do not face the same geographic challenges, and whose long-term resilience and viability will be improved by planning in a community of their peers with shared experience.
3. This project will implement a replicable model of service delivery, along with shareable templates for adaptation planning and financial analysis, that farmers and service providers across the Northeast can use to support whole farm resilience. It will lead to enhanced farmer-to-farmer relationships, increasing the sharing of innovative strategies and the strength of a supportive, connective community that will bolster farmers in future challenging times.