Developing an Extension Program to Address Diverse Cropping Systems in an Uncertain Future.

Forecasted climate change increases already existing uncertainties related to future food production. Developing an effective extension program to prepare farmers for managing sustainable and resilient food production enterprises under increased climate uncertainty requires careful integration with a variety of research disciplines, and recognition that the likely effects of climate change are heterogeneous across space, time, commodity, and individuals. Ultimately, this also necessitates a shift from an extension program focused on technology transfer or best management practices, toward a program focused on building the knowledge base and capacity of food producers and allied industry and agency personnel to adapt to uncertainty. Over the past decade, we have built an agricultural climate change extension program tightly integrated with a variety of research teams including research scientists in soils, agronomy, horticulture, plant pathology, entomology, agricultural economics, crop modeling, hydrology, engineering, atmospheric sciences, and sociology to evaluate specific projected impacts and potential management strategies for farmers to employ in the future. In our program, we have emphasized developing the knowledge-base and capacity of farmers, industry partners and agency support personnel and regulators to interpret climatic information and develop more robust investment, management and regulatory strategies that increase the adaptive capacity of our food production system. Our interactions with agricultural stakeholders throughout the region indicate highly diverse perceptions of climate risk that are defined by location, time-horizon, cropping system, and other socio-economic factors. Our extension team has focused on developing peer-reviewed publications that range from fact sheets and production manuals to case studies, computer-based applications and decision-aids, to live and on-line training opportunities. In addition to targeting farmers, we have focused programming to educate allied industry, government agency personnel, and non-governmental organizations.