STRENGTHENING FARM OPERATOR CAPACITY FOR STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CROPPING SYSTEM ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate processes, coupled with climate-related processes including abiotic, biotic, biophysical, and market processes, result in highly uncertain and complex farm-level operating conditions. Impacts of these processes on farm-level economic and environmental performance pose new imperatives for adaptive farm management. Existing capacity for simulation and analysis leaves these imperatives unfulfilled. Our project goal is to address those imperatives and provide new capacity for farm-level strategic adaptive management response to climate and climate-related processes. Our first objective is to provide a strategic adaptive management support system (SAMSS) that expands current, discrete approaches for management adaption to climate and climate-related scenarios. The SAMSS will (i) support consideration of multiple, nested time horizons; and (ii) extend climate process description to ensemble representation and include market feedbacks manifested in prices and supply disruptions. Second, the project will directly facilitate strategic management of costs of farm-level adaptation to ensure sustainability and manage vulnerability. The project will integrate a biophysical agro-ecosystems model (Cycles), a field and farm-level down-scaled hydrologic model based on PIHM, a new multiple, nested time-scale strategic management planning and decision model, and an accessible data resource (Hydroterre) to compose the farm-level SAMSS. The SAMSS testbed will foster robust strategic farm management planning, assessment, and evaluation for adaption to climate and climate-related processes. The SAMSS will be highly generalizable across crops and farm settings. This new capacity will be demonstrated for grain and forage crops in a target watershed in northeastern U.S. This RESEACH project addresses FY2013 Program Priority Areas #2 and #3.