Understanding State Climate Disaster Relief in New England

View the project report

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: decision support system, farmer to farmer, focus group, networking, participatory research
• Farm Business Management: agricultural finance, financial management, grant making, risk management
• Sustainable Communities: infrastructure analysis, public policy

This project helps farmers and advisors navigate the evolving landscape of climate disaster relief resources in New England.  The pace and scope of climate disaster impacts on farms in New England is increasing but crop insurance remains underutilized. In response to the devastating impacts of extreme weather events on farming new programs to support farms in withstanding the associated financial losses. This project takes a participatory action research approach to answer the following questions: 1) What information do farmers need to better access and utilize climate disaster relief resources?; 2) What is working and not working within existing climate disaster relief programs, and; 3) How do climate disaster relief programs need to evolve to better sustain farms?  A combination of key informant interviews, focus groups, participant observation, qualitative research methods and literature review are utilized to draw out and communicate keys ideas, lessons and recommendations about the current state and evolution of climate disaster financial supports for farmers in the region. The project will create a navigation guide and a list of resources that are currently available to farmers who experiences losses, which will be available in English and Spanish. A report will synthesize the current challenges and strengths of government and non-profit relief programs from the perspectives of farmers and farm advisors, resulting in recommendations to improve current disaster relief programs.

This project seeks to characterize the state of climate disaster relief programs for farmers in New England, support navigation of existing programs and provide actionable recommendations for programs.

Objective 1.  Convene an advisory group to advise on approach, hone in on key issues, and support outreach to farmers.

Objective 2. Conduct a thorough review of existing program information and synthesize into a summary guide for farmers

Objective 3. Conduct key informant interviews and a listening tour of conversations with key stakeholders to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and gaps in current climate disaster relief programming at the state scale in New England.

Objective 4.  Analyze notes from interviews, meetings and focus groups and summarize key themes and recommendations. Synthesize and summarize research using qualitative research thematic analysis methods.

Objective 5. Convene key stakeholders invested in sustaining farm viability in the face of climate change impacts and engage them in co-creating strategies to improve program design and communication with farmers.

Objective 6.  Create outreach materials that communicate key results and disseminate to farmers and other stakeholders.