| Description |
Climate change reports tell an increasingly dire story about the state of the planet and the future. Agriculture, a substantial contributor to global greenhouse emissions, is a sector with a great opportunity to make contributions towards reducing climate change. Climate-positive agriculture, which includes regenerative agriculture practices such as carbon farming, has the potential to both reduce agricultural-based emissions and sequester up to 100% of current annual emissions. This study focuses on small sustainable farmers (ranging from annual vegetables farmers to dairy farmers to ranchers) in the Berkshires to understand the barriers and enabling factors that influence them to incorporate more climate positive practices into their farming. These farmers all believe in and are concerned about climate change but feel limited in their ability to address climate change because they must focus on the viability of their farms. For most of them the prospect of adopting climate-positive practices is too much of a risk to their businesses. My recommendations include farmer-to-farmer education emphasizing the benefits to production and revenue generation and increasing other financial incentives for farmers to adopt climate positives practices. |
