Abstract
An interdisciplinary team collaborated on a farm risk assessment activity initially learned in the classroom and then adapted to guide farmers and agricultural advisors. Activities built for an academic classroom can be shared with practitioners as a pathway to prepare for shifting climate risks. This is important for multiple reasons. First, these engagement pathways, built using resource capacity from higher education, are shared with practitioners who may have limited access to tools or bandwidth to develop risk assessment activities. Second, activities intended to drive adaptation to reduce vulnerability to climate risk need to be tested and used in practice. Using these tools in practice presses the theoretical concept, allowing the tools to evolve and improve. Finally, risk assessment activities provide a space for practitioners to connect, share ideas, and develop new strategies to address risk and manage change.
Authors
Rebecca Brenner
Rebecca Brenner, MPS is a Senior Lecturer at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, where she also serves as a Senior Faculty Fellow with the Atkinson Center for Sustainability, a Faculty Fellow with the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, and a Faculty Associate in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Her research focuses on translating values into practice and policy and reducing vulnerability to build resilience to shifting climate systems. Rebecca is co-lead for FEMA’s Experiential Learning and Leadership Special Interest Group.
Sara Kelemen
Sara Kelemen is a Soil Health Specialist at American Farmland Trust. She is a Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northeast Climate Hub and is the Program Manager for four Climate Adaptation Fellowship programs. Sara works with farmers to help them improve farm resilience in the face of a changing climate. She holds an M.S. in Plant, Soil, and Environmental Science from the University of Maine.
Candace Hulbert
Candace Hulbert is the Program Manager for the National Science Foundation’s AI-Climate Institute for Agriculture and Forestry. She is the Program Manager of Cornell University’s School of Integrated Plant Sciences and a member of the Lehmann Lab. Candace’s research interests include climate-smart agriculture, digital agriculture, artificial intelligence for societal good, disaster preparedness and recovery, team science, agroecology, service learning, environmental justice, and extension education.
Rachel Schattman
Rachel Schattman is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and an Associate Professor at the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. She is also a Fellow with the George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and the lead principal investigator of the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Fellowship program. Her research focus is on addressing climate change in agriculture through adaptation and mitigation research and education.
