Explaining the use of online agricultural decision support tools with weather or climate information in the Midwestern United States

Lu, Jiaxin; Singh, Ajay S.; Koundinya, Vikram; Ranjan, Pranay; Haigh, Tonya; Getson, Jackie M.; Klink, Jenna; Prokopy, Linda Stalker

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111758

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…In this research, the interviewers took cues from earlier work (Arbuckle et al, 2013;Doll et al, 2017) that suggests that one can have fruitful conversations about adaptation and the use of climate projections, without debating the human causes of climate change. Our findings here, differ from other studies that focus on corn crop advisors in the Midwest, where it was seen that advisors were more likely to show positive attitudes toward climate change adaptation than farmers (Lu et al, 2021), showing that there may be interesting regional and crop-based differences in attitudes of farm advisors. Training farm advisors on not just the potential uses of climate change projections, but also on how to engage in such mutually beneficial "joint construction of meaning" conversations on climate change, may be crucial to improve the understanding of the types of long-term information that can aid farmers in agricultural adaptations (Prokopy et al, 2013;Haigh et al, 2015;Kearns, 2021).…”

Section: Additional Quotes From Farmerscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Are long-term climate projections useful for on-farm adaptation decisions?

Jagannathan

Pathak

Doll³

2023

Front. Clim.

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The current literature on climate services for farmers predominantly focuses on seasonal forecasts, with an assumption that longer-term climate projections may not be suitable for informing farming decisions. In this paper, we explore whether certain types of long-term climate projections may be useful for some specific types of farming decisions. Through interviews with almond tree crop farmers and farm advisors in California, we examine how farmers perceive the utility and accuracy levels of long-term climate projections and identify the types of projections that they may find useful. The interviews revealed that farmers often perceive long-term climate projections as an extension of weather forecasts, which can lead to their initial skepticism of the utility of such information. However, we also found that when farmers were presented with long-term trends or shifts in crop-specific agroclimatic metrics (such as chill hours or summer heat), they immediately perceived these as valuable for their decision-making. Hence, the manner in which long-term projections are framed, presented, and discussed with farmers can heavily influence their perception of the potential utility of such projections. The iterative conversations as part of the exploratory interview questions, served as a tool for “joint construction of meaning” of complex and ambiguous terms such as “long-term climate projections,” “long-term decisions” and “uncertainty.” This in-turn supported a joint identification (and understanding) of the types of information that can potentially be useful for on-farm adaptive decisions, where the farmer and the interviewer both improvise and iterate to find the best types of projections that fit specific decision-contexts. Overall, this research identifies both the types of long-term climate information that farmers may consider useful, and the engagement processes that are able to effectively elicit farmers' long-term information needs.

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Section: Additional Quotes From Farmerscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Are long-term climate projections useful for on-farm adaptation decisions?

Jagannathan

Pathak

Doll³

2023

Front. Clim.

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“…Climate scientists have a strong understanding of climate trends and have developed many trend and impact models (Laloyaux et al, 2018;Swain et al, 2020). Despite progress at both ends of the spectrum, DSTs that combine climate trends and impact analyses for specific contexts are still in their infancy (Haigh et al, 2018;Ranjan et al, 2020;Lu et al, 2021). Our study corroborates this statement, with 50% of respondents reporting using DSTs and mostly used weather stations.…”

Section: Use Of Climate Decision Support Toolssupporting

confidence: 78%

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“…Producers in the Midwestern U.S. seek information from specific sources; namely family members and agricultural advisors [ 93 ]. Distinct from scientists, agricultural advisors are the information intermediaries providing direct guidance to farmers on day-to-day farming decision-making by assessing farmers’ needs [ 68 , 84 , 94 , 95 ]. Moreover, seeking and using information is positively related to producers adopting soil and water conservation practices [ 86 ] and trust in information sources is a motivation for conservation adoption [ 87 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture

et al. 2022

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In the United States, a public debate remains about the existence and effects of anthropogenic climate change. This skepticism is present in the agricultural sector, rendering climate science communication challenging. Due to the polarization of climate change issues and the concurrent need for agricultural adaptation, we sought to examine how scientists communicate in this sector. A survey, administered to climate scientists and pertinent U.S. federal agency staff (response rate = 43%), was conducted to examine perspectives on communicating with five agricultural stakeholder groups: agribusinesses, crop advisors, general public, producers, and policymakers. We focused on three aspects of the communication process with these stakeholders to evaluate if scientists, as messengers, were following best practices–communicator training, knowledge of stakeholder, and terminology use. We found scientists valued communication training; however, the majority had not attended formal training. Scientists had different views on climate change than producers and crop advisors but understood their perspective and were deliberate with their communication with different audiences. This suggests stakeholder knowledge and terminology use do not hinder communication between scientist and stakeholder. We also highlight three communication challenges present across stakeholder groups–stakeholder knowledge, timescale, and scientific uncertainty–and others that were specific to each stakeholder group. Future research should support scientists by identifying and resolving barriers to training and effective communication strategies for each stakeholder group that addresses these challenges.

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Explaining the use of online agricultural decision support tools with weather or climate information in the Midwestern United States

Cited by 16 publications

References 68 publications

Are long-term climate projections useful for on-farm adaptation decisions?

Are long-term climate projections useful for on-farm adaptation decisions?

Data_Sheet_1.PDF

Understanding scientists’ communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture

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