Climate change policy adapation among California farmers

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:00:00 -0500

Niles' research has tremendous implications for policymakers who seek to create programs that help mitigate contributions to climate change from agriculture. Her work suggests that farmers are willing to overlook their concerns with previous policies if climate change programs are based on incentives. Coupling regulatory measures with technical assistance, cost-share and other incentive-based programs can potentially contribute to greater farmer participation and community buy-in. More generally, the strong role of farmers' previous experiences with policy in affecting their beliefs about climate change and attitudes toward policy suggest that future climate change and environmental behavior research should consider policy attitudes and experiences as a key independent variable. Niles' results also demonstrate the need to consider policy adaptation in additional climate change and agriculture research to more completely consider the suite of climate change impacts that may affect agricultural communities.